Letters To You
by RainingMonday
Summary: They thought two continents and an ocean would be enough to keep lingering feelings from reigniting. They were wrong. An Addek story told by letters.
1. August 31, 2009

**~..~ Letters To You ~..~**

**So, I'm trying something different. It should be quite the experience – getting Addek back together just using letters.  
****Grey's belongs to Shonda and abc. Only disclaimer I'm writing.  
****Oh, and a note on the dates. The date of the title is the date that the letter (or in this case, email) is received, _not _the day it is sent.**

* * *

_~ Distance is only a test to see how far love can travel ~_

**August 31, 2009**

Despite ocher sunlight frosting individual grains of sand and melting them into incandescent specks, despite the sight of water and earth engaged in their endless war, frothy foam staining the beach a darker, duller gold, and despite that she has about a half a million things to think about, Addison Montgomery can only focus on one thing. Ironically, it is a piece of machinery.

It isn't really the laptop; it is the all-devouring duty the laptop represents, sitting there innocently, bathed in sun, urging her to get a move on. Procrastination has become an uncomfortably close friend, but really, there are only so many new pairs of Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos she can order, as she won't be here to receive them, and only so many times she can change her outfit before she achieves perfection.

Suitcases, too many for a single person, litter her marble entryway, admonishing her misery, because really, emailing her ex-husband whom she has not seen in a year, maybe two, okay, three, should be much easier.

But it's not. Derek's handsome, charming face, brilliantly sky blue eyes, coal curls, and all, hangs out behind her eyelids, taunting her with all the things she once possessed and instilling self-hatred for still wanting them.

Sure, it's ironic, perhaps, that his email address is the only one she can remember. And that she thinks of him far too much. What can she say, after such an abrupt parting? Does he still blame her for the death of Jen and the relative destruction of his life that followed, or does he remember happier times, the song he sang her, the hot dog Thanksgiving, mornings spent in the Brownstone spent making love and breakfast at random intervals, tasting jelly on her lips and love on her tongue?

Surely neither, Addison thinks as she sinks down into one of her expensive white deck chairs, her body melting to the fabric and wood as she glares at her computer. He has his twelve-year-old, Meredith, he's her responsibility, her 'person', her happiness now. What few claims she has on him have weakened until they are mere tendrils of nostalgia.

Somehow, the fact that she is farthest from his mind makes it easier. It is one email, one email in which she can pretend she has completely and utterly moved on as well. Hugging her sweater a little closer, as if the thin cashmere can protect her heart, and hand tangled in her crimson locks, she begins to type.

_Derek,_

_Look, I know this isn't a task I should be entrusting to my ex-husband. I promise I won't ever ask you to pick up your socks again or mow the damn lawn. It's just that everyone decided that they were going to be unavailable today. Oh, and also I kind of lost my Blackberry. Okay, it fell in the ocean. Don't ask how. (Fine, since I know you'll wonder, somebody threw it.)_

_Anyway, your email address is so generic that it's the only one I could remember off the top of my head and my flight leaves in about two hours so I've really got to get going. Just … remind anyone who calls that I'm going to Africa. I know for a fact that Archer is going to forget and call me fifty thousand times., and Savvy probably will too and have some sort of total flip out because I'm not answering my phone. So, if they call you, tell them that I went on a mission trip with the practice._

_We're going to Africa. Did I mention that? Sudan, actually._

_Yeah, Pete, this guy that I work with (not my boyfriend, Derek Shepherd, so don't even go there) got us involved in Doctors Without Borders. Things with the practice have been hectic these last few years and we all really need to get out of LA. So against my better judgment, I am headed to a place with virtually no shopping, no plumbing, and no ORs within at least 400 miles. I can't talk about it anymore, or else I'm going to forget why I agreed._

_I know we haven't seen each other in what, more than three years? I suppose I should thank you once again for saving my brother. Even though I almost regretted it, seeing as he proceeded to break Naomi's heart not too long after. Okay, sorry, this was supposed to be like a two sentence email. I have to go now anyway. But I won't have internet access there and roaming will cost like fifty million dollars, if I can find service at all, so if anyone wants to contact me, they can send a letter. Ha. I doubt anyone wants to talk to me that badly._

_Thanks Der. Hope you and Meredith are doing … well. There's one letter I might get, right? An invitation to the wedding? Just kidding. You don't have to invite me. Okay, done rambling. Wow, that was stupid. I am going to just stop typing now._

_Addison_

_P.S. We are NOT talking about it. Ever._

Derek Shepherd is lost in the early morning dew of dawn, staring at nothing, trying to banish his lingering guilt. He'd lost a diabetic patient to an aneurism the day before, and, being the doctor he is, he simply can't let the case fade into the monolith of ended lives and lost opportunities that he carries wherever he goes. He tossed and turned for hours and then finally got up, hoping that statistics could make him feel better.

The computer gives a soft chime, alerting him to the fact that an email lays waiting for him to read. He starts and maneuvers the mouse quickly, until the flashing signal goes away and he is looking at a name he quite honestly never expected to see again.

Evanescent warmth permeates him and he unintentionally allows a tiny grin to capture his lips. God, he hasn't heard from her in _so long. _That doesn't explain away the nervous fluttering in his stomach, or the way fiery curls, skin distilled from cream, never-ending legs, and eyes the essence of earth and sky themselves swim in front of his eyes in ways they shouldn't.

Meredith's sleeping silhouette is a tribute to her ignorance of his current actions, but he convinces himself that it is innocent. He and Addie are friends – or, were working on friendship before her disastrous journey to save her brother. After three years of silence, he could only conclude that she was angry about the events that transpired, and he elected to give her space instead of shoving his attentions and apologies upon her. Now, he wonders if he was wrong to do so.

Derek laughs as he reads, trying in vain to picture immaculate, put-together, city-girl Addison in the wispy fawn colored sand of Sudan. He hopes she has the sense to leave her stilettos behind, but somehow he doubts that is the case. Her favorite Manolo Blahniks, encased in mud and decorated with sand, he would pay to see that.

And elephants? Giraffes? Hyenas? He doesn't know if these animals inhabit the part of Africa she's visiting but picturing them interacting with his ex-wife is downright hilarious. Thinking about it makes him want to see it, which makes him want to be there with her. The first symptoms of danger go ignored.

Maybe … maybe he'll write a letter back, say hello. After all, Addison's in Africa. Nothing could possibly happen when she's a sea and two continents away. Right?

* * *

**Yes, not everything that happened in the three years has been explained. It will be. Eventually.**

**And thanks in advance for reviews throughout the duration of the story because I won't be writing any more ANs. It messes up the flow. So, anyway, love to hear from you …**

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	2. September 12, 2009

**September 12, 2009**

He has gotten to know furtiveness over the years, first when avoiding a marriage in shambles, then when hiding his wife from his girlfriend, but most of all when shedding mistakes, letting them roll off like water over oil. He thought he had kicked the habit until he finds himself tucking the letter to Addie under his scrubs, against his frantically pumping heart, as Mark swaggers up to him in the hallway.

"Shep!" he calls, and the booming tenor chases away any chances for subtlety. "You up for drinks after -"

"Not now, Mark," Derek snaps, his voice harsher than intended, and Mark stares after him openmouthed as he jogs through the hospital. One corner of the envelope digs into the tender skin of his sternum, as if his correspondence with Addie is poking and pushing its way into his heart.

He shouldn't feel the need to scribble the words out under the guise of post-op notes, shouldn't have to ink out her address in the velvety darkness as Meredith slumbers. The letter shouldn't have to be tucked snugly under his navy scrub top. Because, after all, Meredith probably wouldn't mind him contacting Addison, and Mark already knows he is writing to his ex-wife.

But he fears he has splattered a bit too much emotion across the pages, feelings hiding behind casual words. He cares about Addison, that is indisputable, but this sudden urge to see the oceans contained in her azure eyes lit up by sunlight is inexplicable. It is safer to duck under what little cover is offered from the pelting droplets on the way to the post office by himself.

_Dear Addie,_

_Neither Savvy nor Archer has called yet, but it's only a matter of time, and Nancy did, right before she showed up on my doorstep with my mother and sisters. Needless to say, Meredith was unpleasantly surprised and there wasn't even any time for the ridiculously high ponytail (one of Izzie's attempts to make her more appealing to mothers). Nancy wanted to know why you weren't answering your phone, although why she thought to ask _me _I have no idea._

_She claims she's clairvoyant, but I think she's really indulged in every sort of denial related to Meredith. She also secretly hopes we're getting back together. Oh, and now my other sisters are referring to Mer as the 'slutty intern' as well, even though she's not an intern anymore._

_Anyway, Meredith and I took Ma and my sisters out to dinner, which was kind of a disaster. My mom may have hated you, but my sisters loved you, you know. In fact, they kind of made you the central topic of conversation at dinner, despite all efforts to the contrary. Nancy went on for twenty minutes about how you're in Africa delivering babies in the wilderness. Then Kathleen joined in with her psycho-babble and implied that Meredith was selfish because she wasn't doing the same, and then of course the other two couldn't resist commenting. Meredith wasn't happy. Neither was Ma. But it was an entertaining meal._

_Mark says hi and to be careful because there's only so much he can do if you get your face blown off. Always so sentimental and politically correct, but that's Mark for you. He broke up with his intern, by the way, and is now actually attempting to date women who aren't sluts. Callie says hi as well and that she needs someone to mooch money off of because her dad cut her off for being a lesbian. Also she wants a picture of a giraffe and any hot guys you meet. I didn't want to write that in the letter but she threatened to break my nose, and hey, she could probably do it._

_You never said how long you're going to be gone, but I was thinking, on the way back if you have a long layover in Seattle maybe you could stop by. A lot of sucky things happened here, I know, but Mark, Callie, Richard, and Miranda all really miss you. And … I miss you too, Addie. It's okay for exes to miss each other, right? Just as friends?_

_You're probably surprised to get this letter, but I want to put everything that happened last time in Seattle behind us. I'd like you as a friend, Addie. And I want to know all about Africa. How are the wildebeests treating you? (Are there wildebeests there?) I utterly fail in imagining you going for a day without a shower, not to mention days on end. And I'm guessing the housing there is … less than ideal, but I can't see you and all your shoes living in a hut (I shudder to think of how many pairs you brought. Just one of your shoes could probably feed those people for a year.)_

_Things with Meredith are fine, although I see through your charade of nonchalance. We don't have to do that thing, you know. The thing where you ask about my fiancée and I ask about whatever guy you're dating. I'm not sure I'm ready to do that thing._

_Anyway, I hope Africa is treating you well. I admire you for doing this, you know, especially since it's not exactly your kind of thing._

_Derek_

_P.S. Don't forget the SPF 50 sunscreen. Remember our honeymoon?  
__P.P.S. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to_

She has yet to acclimate to the beige sand that twists and turns in the wind, swept over her bare feet in a second and then removed the next. The sky is a soft, cloudy grey instead of the brilliant blue she'd imagined, but it is bright under the ever-present sun. Sweat clings to her body, the beads on her skin joining to form drips.

This desert solace is her single comfort in a country impaired by ruthless violence, she has already see too many brown-skinned children, eyes huge in emaciated faces, succumb to various sicknesses and injuries that could be cured if only she possessed an OR and scalpel. The babies she delivers are too thin, too malnourished, and the mothers too young, too sick, too poor. There have already been a few infants she has imagined spiriting back to LA just so they can experience being well fed.

It might be better if there was someone who understood the depths of sorrow being showcased all around her, but Violet, Pete, Charlotte, and Naomi are utilizing their skills at one of the clinics and Sam and Cooper are stationed in a different village. She'll see them in a few weeks, she knows, but it would be nice to share her terrors of delivering infants in crude clay huts with someone who has actually seen how a child should come into the world.

"Doctuh Montgomery?" a heavily accented voice asks, and she turns to see Matak, one of the young men from the village, approaching her. She knows the males were skeptical of her at first but when she proved she could do more than just deliver babies, she gained the grudging respect of some and near-worship from others, especially the younger ones. Now she is followed whenever she sets foot in the village by children tugging on the scarlet strands of her hair.

"Hello, Matak," she says, hoping he has not come to ask for advice or whether all the women in America have strawberry curls.

"Dis came for you," he replies, giving her a shy smile and holding out the letter. "Eet is strange. We receive few lettahs here."

"Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are," she mutters as she takes the envelope from him. Why her fingers tremble around the worn paper she is unsure, or why the nearly illegible address of her ex-husband creates a hummingbird sensation in her chest. _Derek _sent her a letter? Derek, who skipped out on birthdays, who forgot their anniversary, who traded time with her for his beloved surgeries?

"Doctuh Montgomery? You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm … yeah. Thanks Matak," she mutters, arranging bronzed legs and a loose white skirt she would have never been caught dead in while in LA on the top of one sun drenched dune. Her fingers fumble with the envelope, nearly ripping the precious paper inside, and when she finally beholds it and finds she has to squint to decipher his writing, it touches her heart in tender places she was sure she'd locked up long ago.

When she finishes she lays splayed out in the sand, soaking up sunlight like it is a balm for her sudden uncertainty. Reading Derek's letter was like drinking water after a long drought, but the mix of heartwarming worry, gentle teasing, and general news confuses her. If she had been expecting correspondence at all, she would have thought it would be short, brisk, hurried. The only key to Derek she currently possesses is time, however, so she simply relaxes, replies to his commentary already forming from the whirl of thoughts in her head.


	3. September 28, 2009

**September 28, 2009**

At a month on the other side of the sea, her skin is sun-burnished bronze, her hair a fey mix of sunshiny butterscotch and the ruby red of wine. Her decision to come to Africa wasn't a maudlin, self-sacrificing venture, but rather a reacquainting with her old friend escape; now she finds that sniping umbilical cords with garden shears and wrapping newborns in rags gives her job a sort of fantastical thrill.

Picking out telling features in rich cocoa skin has become almost second nature; her tongue now flicks and flutters to say even the most unpronounceable names correctly. She is still followed, still joined at night by pattering feet and wide eyes so she can tell by dim lantern light of glowing cities, golden mansions, and food spun of sugar. She is now allowed to sit while they perform intricate, ancient dances, though joining in is still beyond her. They try to give her the best food, the best supplies in exchange for her medical assistance, but she only redistributes them, the $25 million trust fund weighing on her mind.

Pete has contacted her to express concern about Violet bonding with a baby boy, a surrogate for the one she'd lost to Katie Kent's demons three years ago, Naomi to lightly complain about having to dust off skills from medical school. Cooper and Sam tell her a story about a boy with no legs that reduces her to tears when she thrashes in her own sweat at night. Here, despite her failure with meaningful romantic relationships in general, she cannot help but feel lucky.

And each shining new experience begs to be shared with Derek, tantalizing her with potential comments and facial expressions.

It is one thing to squeeze these things from her pen and into the ink that stains the paper, and another to stand in the opening of her hut, sparsely decorated with two cots, a small table, her suitcases, and a clay jar for water. The letter travels, via her hand from the crude dwelling through the blinding white sand of the village and finally to the small, empty box reserved for letters.

"Who is dat lettah to?" She spins to find the village priest, a kindly smile on his ancient face as he watches her drop the envelope into the box.

"Oh, um, just … a friend," she stutters, surprised and blushing.

"A friend, hmm?" Nyanath, one of the few refugees who speaks English, asks slyly. Addison delivered her son, Jafar, just two hours after Nyanath staggered, bloody and exhausted, into the village a month ago, making the small, ebony skinned boy one of the first born by her hands in Africa.

"Yes, a friend," Addison says firmly, dodging curious smiles and the eager assistance that follows her everywhere. It was a lie only by omission, because Derek is her friend and yet there are so many hidden meanings lurking behind that word.

_Dr. Shepherd, your eloquence surprises me, as does your ability to find time for something so trite as letter writing amidst a renowned career in neurosurgery._

_I could pretend I feel bad about the 'slutty intern' thing, but I am 'Satan' after all, so I won't bother with that. You've been engaged for three years now, so you'd think your sisters would have gotten used to the idea. When are you and Meredith getting married? I thought you were pretty eager to tie the knot._

_I've heard from Nancy (who says I gave her carpal tunnel), Savvy (she and Weiss want to adopt a child from Africa, I'm trying to set something up for them) and Callie (she says she's been neglecting post-op notes to tell me all the gossip). Tell Mark that I knew he had a romantic side and that he could write once in a while._

_The plan is to stay over here for six months, but Naomi and Sam will probably leave sooner because Maya is staying with her aunt in Boston. She doesn't mind, but as Naomi and Sam are still in denial that they want to get back together … well, we'll see how it goes. It's been good for all of us, I think. Violet and Pete have had a hard time after Katie Kent murdered their son and if they stay, Charlotte and Cooper probably will to. I guess you don't really know any of these people besides Sam and Nae, so I don't know why I'm telling you this._

_Maybe you would fit in better here than me considering you're a wood-chopping, flannel-wearing fisherman these days. It's been hard but also a real wake-up call; when kids are starving I don't really notice I haven't had a shower._

_Sorry. That was a bit snippy. It's just hard watching babies die and not being able to do anything about it. Later on I'll be working at an actual hospital but for now I was stationed to help the refugees from the south pouring into these villages. I hadn't done an amputation since my internship and now I've done at least thirty – mostly on innocents injured by the fighting in the south._

_Since you asked, yes, I do live in a hut. I brought a bunch of designer shoes, too, but on my second day here I shipped most of them back to LA. It made me feel like a terrible person, having so much, so the next day I gave away all the jewelry that I'd brought. The village kids were in awe and pretended they were princes and princesses. Yesterday, when they lost their ball, I caught them playing catch with one of my Jimmy Choos pumps. I didn't have the heart to ask for it back._

_Several years ago when Denny Duquette left her the $8.7 million, Izzie Stevens asked if I felt bad being rich when others were so poor. I've been rich my whole life – I've never really thought about it. But now I feel so guilty, Derek, all the time. And I don't mean to foist my problems off to you, it's just that it's consuming me._

_Anyway, the people here are all very nice. Once a week, me and a few others teach them words in English. Most of the time I'm too tired, though, there's always another person who needs help._

_Yes, I was _very _surprised to hear from you, but it was … nice. We should be friends, I think we owe that to ourselves. Tell everyone hi for me._

_Addison_

_P.S. Thanks for the sunscreen reminder, although my skin is several shades darker now anyway.  
__P.P.S. Good. Just wanted to make that clear. Because talking about it … we just shouldn't._

Autumn once again is making itself known in the softly falling leaves and the way the winds whips through his midnight curls, scattering them across his face. Hands tucked deep in the fleece-lined pockets of his windbreaker; he awaits the mailman with an urgency that puzzles even himself. His first surgery isn't until two o'clock, he has plenty of time, and Meredith isn't even home to berate him about his behavior.

Although she may be hearing about it, because Izzie is giving him some decidedly odd looks from her position in the kitchen, where she flips pancakes for Alex and Lexie. Derek ignores her, eyes trained on the road, until the little old mailman pulls up, steps sprightly out of his truck, and winks at Derek.

"The only people I see waiting so diligently for letters are children and lovers. You're sure not a kid, so who is she?" The old man's eyes twinkle with delight from under a mop of snow white hair, and he beams at up at Derek from chest height.

"Neither," Derek says firmly.

"Well, I doubt you're out here in this weather waiting for bills," the man replies cheerfully, undeterred by Derek's stoniness. "Let me see …" he flips through envelopes and packages of various sizes, and Derek's eyes don't leave the scrawled addresses and foreign stamps. "Ah, here we go. You must be Mr. Shepherd."

"Doctor," he corrects quietly, automatically.

"Well, Dr. Shepherd, this one's all the way from Africa," he holds the letter out, smiling indulgently, and Derek notices belatedly that the letters embroidered on his navy jacket spell 'Charles.'

"Thank you," he murmurs, already journeying through villages erected by sand and topped by palm fronds, across desert-speckled plains of prickly grass and lone acacia trees illuminated by harsh sunlight. He alternately frowns and smiles as he scans Addison's narration, some topics begging discussion while others make him cringe. Already he is calculating hours and minutes before surgery in which he can pen a reply.


	4. October 9, 2009

**October 9, 2009**

He has been lost, floating in the gentle tug of perfect sutures and the sight of clean shaven heads, bare except for a thin memoir of time spent in a less desirable state of health. These days, however, procedures become just that – just a job – in comparison to the letters he now lives in.

They occupy the better part of his day, and yet he still does not realize his attachment to the phrases he sends his ex-wife and slow severing of the life that once meant so much to him.

As fate pulls strings, aligns the planets, and marinates the coincidences until they are soaked in enough random irony, Derek heads to the room of his next patient, tucking his half-finished letter under his patient's chart.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Atherton," he says in what he would normally label as a professionally pleasant voice.

"Excuse me, Nurse Brenda," the old, (and apparently slightly senile) man calls to the nurse Derek had assigned to he case. "I think we've got a security breach!"

"No, no need to be alarmed, Mr. Atherton. I'm the neurosurgeon."

"Neurosurgeon, hmm," Edward Atherton deadpans suspiciously, bringing back memories of him and Mark standing guiltily in front of his father while he held up disfigured Barbies or stolen candy.

"Hey, Shep," Mark pokes his head in the door, "I'm going out with Kelley and I was wondering if you had any con-"

"In my locker," Derek sighs resignedly as Mark darts off, leaving him with the perpetually mistrustful Mr. Atherton. He stands at the edge of a cliff and just before the drop he gains the ability to reach through time.

_Dear Addie,_

_Wow, I guess I hadn't really realized it's been three years. Meredith wanted a long engagement, and I didn't mind since it meant she would marry me eventually, but sometimes I think she's stalling. And maybe this isn't something I should be discussing with my ex-wife – or anyone but Meredith, really – but sometimes I also wonder if it's my fault. I want the whole package – marriage, kids, happiness – and sometimes I feel like … I've been trying all this time to convince Meredith that's what she wants too. I don't know. I think this was easier the first time around :)._

_But enough about me. I haven't heard from Savvy or Weiss – you definitely got Savvy in the divorce, I don't think she's very fond of me anymore. In fact, I get the feeling she forbade Weiss to call me. At least my sisters are bugging me and not you. They keep trying to get Meredith to pick a date for the wedding._

_Oh, and Mark tried to write you a letter. The only things he could think of to write about were recent boob jobs and his latest girlfriends, so Callie told him to wait until he has something of sustenance to send you. She misses you, you know. Bailey's pretty busy being a single mother and Arizona's been here 24/7 since one of the peds residents is on maternity leave. I could tell you the usual gossip, but I suspect you're already getting it from Callie. Richard said to tell you hello as well and that you didn't tell him you were going to Africa, and that he's going to have an offer you can't refuse ready when you get back._

_You're right, I was a little insensitive. It's hard enough having kids and babies die under you scalpel from conditions you can't save them from, but watching them starve or be blown apart? I can't even imagine it. I think you're the strongest person I know, Addison._

_I also think I need to see you in the hut to actually believe it. And since my sisters have shown you so many embarrassing picture of me, you owe me at least a few of you in Africa. Oh, and I always knew all those designer shoes were good for something – at least those kids aren't throwing them at my head._

_You can't think like that, Addison. There's always going to be people who have more than other people, it's the way it works. And the fact that you're over there helping shows that you genuinely care. Anyone can donate money, but few people can deliver babies in the grasslands._

_We should be friends – like we were before we started dating, remember? It took me eight months of being friends and studying together to actually ask you out, even though I wanted to do it the moment I met you. Funny how full circle we've come, huh? Anyway, give Sam and Naomi my love._

_Yours,  
__Derek_

_P.S. You're right, we shouldn't talk about it. I just … maybe it wasn't what we wrote it off as._

A rare moment of solitude affords her an opportunity to immerse herself in Derek's latest letter and to walk the halls of Seattle Grace's top notch facilities once again. She can place herself behind him as he hurries to yet another neuro consult, as he peels back skin and skull to access someone's brain. She always loved watching him in surgery; there was something fascinating, sensual, almost, about his precision and absolute focus.

She lifts a cup to her mouth and lets the fruity juice swish around her mouth and entertain her tongue while she reads through the letter. Warm blossoms in her heart – having him as a friend feels inexplicably _right _and nothing has been _right _about their relationship in years. He has found a perfect formula of news, encouragement, and teasing, and the simple, carefree words emerge in a bright smile as she shuffles her papers to prepare a response.

She isn't past the greeting, however, when Naomi pulls up a lawn chair beside her and sighs, dust suspended in her soft chocolate curls and sweat beading her brow. Her, Sam and Pete had arrived in the village the day before. "I feel like I should be doing something all the time," she groans, threading fingers through her mussed hair, "but I'm exhausted. I will never complain about a boring day at the practice ever again."

"Hmm," Addison replies pensively, because although she agrees she is also busy relating her latest delivery, a beautiful baby girl named Aziza, via words to her ex-husband.

"Addison! Are you even listening?"

"Mm hmm."

"No you're not. What's that you're -"

"Nothing," Addison says a little too quickly, holding the letter away from Naomi and trying to talk her cheeks down from blushing profusely.

"You're writing something," Naomi grins wickedly, "did you meet someone in LA I didn't know about …"

"No!" Addison mutters quickly. "No, no, it's nothing like that. I just -"

"Oh God. Please tell me that it's not Noah."

"No, of course not! Naomi, you know why I left him, because it was _wrong_, and because I couldn't for other very obvious reasons, so I don't know why -"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Naomi interjects quickly, rolling her eyes. "But you could at least tell me who it is."

"Oh, it's just … um … Callie," Addison says, knowing she doesn't sound convincing at all but hoping that Naomi will recognize her reluctance to pursue the subject.

She should be so lucky. "You wrote to Callie yesterday," Naomi accuses.

"How do you know that?"

"You asked Sam to put in the letter box for you, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah. Shit." She brushes an imaginary grain of sand off of her immaculate Christian Louboutin heels that she spends her free time cleaning, because once every few days she sits out in the desert in a lawn chair and just _pretends _that the occasion or need to wear designer heels exists. While she is doing so, however, Naomi leans over and snatches the letter, clearly expecting to discover some trivial nothings whispered to a secret lover.

What she finds is far different, however, and shock, consternation, and pity move across her face, an unwelcome slideshow of emotion. Addison's teeth dig unintentionally deep into the pomegranate curve of her lip as Naomi finally looks up, sympathy welling up in her warm russet eyes. "Addie …"

"What?" Addison snaps back, a touch too much defensiveness clouding her voice.

"Addison, what are you doing?" The compassion twists Addison's heart, making her friend's concern almost painful to bear.

"I … nothing. It's nothing. He wrote me a letter, I'm writing back. Nothing more to it than that."

"Everyone's curious about your letter love affair, Addison. This has been going on for a few months now," Naomi counters sternly. "Look, it's your business; I just don't want to see you hurt again. I remember how the divorce devastated you, and … I guess I thought you'd moved on from Derek Shepherd."

"I have," Addison blurts unconvincingly. "What's between Derek and I is completely innocent, Nae. He's with his intern, and I've … moved on."

"Does he …"

"No. He doesn't. And I intend to keep it that way."


	5. October 25, 2009

**October 25, 2009**

On the misty morning Addison selects to take her favorite Manolo Blahniks on a stroll (they were begging to be walked) happens to be the day Benji learns to unlatch the bamboo holding his cage shut. She encounters the grey bundle of wrinkles just past the outskirts of the village, trumpeting excitedly at his newfound freedom.

Four children trail behind, but they are too little, too late. Benji halts in front of her, eyeing the strange creature decorated in the foreign labels of clothes that cost more than he would himself. Addison rarely prays and would certainly never admit to doing so but as Benji turns large, sorrowful orbs on her she pleads for a serendipitous rescue.

It doesn't come.

Instead, the baby elephant lets forth a ringing trumpeting noise, simultaneously spraying Addison with muddy water. Moisture caressing every portion of her body, bathed in both liquid of an unpleasant brown color and the good-natured laughter of the villagers, she raises her trademark eyebrow and mourns the poor patented leather pumps.

She can hardly believe she is in the middle of nowhere soaking in second-hand elephant water. Addison Montgomery Shepherd wouldn't have been caught dead here, but Addison Montgomery has lost a third of her name and her life and half of what she used to use to define herself so she mostly just goes with it these days.

"Benji must like you, Aduhson!" someone yells, adding to the melodious, uncultivated peals of laughter that sound from the gathered crowd.

The four boys, three with shiny, chocolate-y bald heads and the fourth with ebon curls, proffer guilty grins as they tangle dirty fingers in the soaking fabric. She allows a good natured smile to shine through as she stumbles back through the village toward the communal shower, patting the clinging fingers as they sink into her skin, wondering how to relate to Derek this miraculous feeling of belonging.

Plus how to communicate the elephant disaster without sounding too ridiculous.

_Dear Derek,_

_I think everything was easier the first time around, when all that mattered was love. Now there are so many other factors and so much baggage that … it's just hard. So hard, sometimes, that it doesn't even seem worth it to try. Except, well, I'm terrified of ending up alone so I try and just end up even more screwed up than I was in the first place._

_But I hope things for you and Meredith are going well._

_As for the marriage, kids, and happiness thing, well, we got two out of the three, didn't we? Not up to our usual standard, but you still have time. If I know you at all, you never settle for two out of three._

_I wrote to Callie, but keep an eye on her for me, will you? From what I understand, she and Arizona are going through a rough patch and since I can't be there … well, I know you aren't all that close but will you just … for me?_

_Tell everyone else – Mark, Richard, Miranda – that I say hi. Oh, and that they'll be amused to know that I got sprayed by an overexcited baby elephant on my walk this morning. Cooper almost had to do the Heimlich maneuver on Naomi because she was laughing so hard and choked on a piece of fruit. Don't laugh. I know you're laughing. Stop it, Derek. It brought back traumatic memories of that one Christmas when you tried to take me for a sleigh ride but the Clydesdale peed all over my nine hundred dollar shoes. You couldn't stop laughing long enough to help me wipe off._

_I'm sorry about the baby thing, it's just so hard seeing them die from an infection a few days after a c-section in an unclean atmosphere and being able to do nothing – absolutely nothing about it, while the mother and the relatives and all the people in the village are begging you for your 'American magic.' I'm not that strong, Derek. I cry every time I lose another one._

_I refuse to give you even more incentive to laugh at me – so no pictures. And don't even _think _about asking Sam, or god forbid Cooper or Pete. They know better than to anger a woman with a scalpel._

_We can be friends, but knowing us, we should probably have some rules. For instance, does your fiancée know that you're writing to me? I know how it feels to be kept in the dark, Derek, so don't repeat your mistakes. Also, we should only tell each other things that friends would say, not things that amicably divorced but still hopelessly complicated people would tell each other. Because there's some things, Derek, that I'm just not ready to hear._

_I knew you wanted to ask me out for those eight months. I was going to take pity on you and just ask you to coffee myself, but Mark told me that I should wait for you to man up. Sorry, honey._

_Addison_

_P.S. It was EXACTLY what we wrote it off as, Derek. Don't go there. And I thought we weren't talking about it!_

Across a couple thousand miles of breaking azure waves under the golden Atlantic sun, Derek lets forth a hearty laugh upon reading his ex-wife's story of an unfortunate animal encounter. It was bound to happen sometime, because nature and Addison are perpetually incompatible, and he's actually surprised she lasted nearly two months in the savannah without any incidents with Mother Nature.

The four residents occupying his kitchen turn in surprise at the sounds of his merriment, because after recent layoffs the tense atmosphere covers them like newly fallen snow, finding its way into nooks and crannies it should not be able to. Even two years after George's death, the resident makes his presence known by the gaping hole in the fabric of his friends. They orient themselves around the empty space as if he can appreciate the available spot from some high place above.

Then again, if it was someone he loved that had died … perhaps he would not be so cynical then. If Meredith … or Addison …

And then he wishes that she wasn't quite so far out of reach; that his paltry protection could stretch through palm frond huts and lush oases of Africa because she's been physically gone from his life for years, but emotionally? Emotionally she's never left. Losing his father as a child makes him resistant to loss; knowing that those he loves are safe is necessary even when he's a jerk and doesn't call or visit. As long as they're okay, he can pull air through his nose, down his windpipe, into the bronchi and finally into the tiny, spongy alveoli of his lungs, and _breathe. _

"Enough about work, dammit!" Alex snaps from the kitchen. "Iz, you're not getting fired, you just had cancer. Cristina, you are a freaking robot. They're not firing you even if you suck with kids. Meredith, you have your dead mommy trump card. Now can we please stop talking about this?"

"I know!" Izzie pipes up, enthusiasm lacing her voice. "We should talk about Halloween!" There is a simultaneous groan from the kitchen, but instead of contemplating how to avoid Izzie's Halloween schemes he instead wonders whether Halloween is celebrated in Sudan …

"If your version of Halloween involves copious amounts of alcohol, I'm in. Otherwise …" Cristina threatens. "I'm tying you to a chair. Especially if it involves another wig."

"Sorry, Iz, but I'm with her."

"Alex!" There was a loud thump at she presumably smacked his arm. "Hello, cancer?"

"That doesn't work anymore."

"_Wife_?"

"Doesn't that mean we have license to argue?"

"Ugh!" The sound of three people vacating a room meets his ears, and he waits for the fourth set but those steps draw closer instead of farther away.

"Derek?" Meredith asks hesitantly as she approaches his faraway countenance. "Where are you?" she jokes.

"Africa," he mutters and stands, leaving his confused fiancée in his wake.


	6. November 15, 2009

**November 15, 2009**

"Nurse Brenda? Brenda, dammit, you promised you'd talk to the Chief of Surgery about security!" Edward Atherton's voice, like the scraping of rusted metal, sounds as Derek enters the old man's room.

"We talked about this, remember, Mr. Atherton?" Derek asks patiently, thanking the heavens that at least he has retrograde amnesia, not erectile problems like Mark's latest patient. "I'm Dr. Shepherd, your neurosurgeon."

"In my day doctors were properly old and crusty!" Edward yells, under the impression that he is talking in a regular voice. "Unlike that Asian robot who was in here earlier! She just wanted to cut open my brain!"

"Yes, well, Dr. Yang can come across a bit strong," Derek admits carefully. "But I assure you, despite the lack of crustiness, that you are receiving the best care possible."

"Humpf. Doctors who look like models, robots that do surgery, and a hospital that plays out like a soap opera, for Christ's sake. I may not remember much, but I do remember the good old days, Dr. Shepherd."

"Mmm," Derek says politely, feigning interest as he taps his clipboard impatiently against his leg. This is the second time this week's he's tried to have this conversation with the old man and last time he got a load about WWII. "I'm sure you do. Now, we need to discuss a few lab results because quite frankly I'm …"

"It was just me and Phoebe, jus' her and me and none of this ridiculous technology. We lived in a little apartment overlooking Central Park that was the envy of all our friends. Phoebe was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, when I met her. She had hair as red as strawberries and everyone agreed that her cherry pie was positively divine …"

Edward's words finally sink into the hidden recesses of Derek's constantly occupied brain. "What did you say?" he asks in a shaky voice, because if Edward said what he thinks he did, _he can see it. _He can see that redhead gazing out over central park, the wind picking up her bright vermilion locks, the brilliant smile when she turns and sees him.

"I said her cherry pies -"

"No, not that. What did you say before that?" Derek asks urgently.

"I – I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd, I'm having trouble remembering exactly …"

The old man's precious recollections are interrupted by the shrill ringing of Derek's pager, and as he leaves the room only to be accosted by a bunch of leeches in scrubs of a disturbing orange color, he reminds himself that he must not forget, because Edward's words have awoken a deep-buried longing inside of him …

_Adds,_

_You're not going to end up alone, Addison. You're never alone. I feel like that too sometimes, that I don't know what I'm fighting for when me and Meredith have another fight and I'm just too angry or tired to work it out. It's all uphill right now, I guess we have to pay for all the downhill times, walking in Central Park in the summer and the late nights spent rushing around the hospital competing for the best surgeries._

_I hope someday I'll hold a blue-eyed baby in my arms and tell anyone who'll listen how much he looks like my father, but these days I begin to doubt whether it will ever happen. Not that Meredith is averse to having kids … actually I guess I don't really know how she feels about it._

_I always thought my kids would have red hair. It's so ingrained that it's hard to picture it otherwise, now. Do you think things would have been different if … never mind._

_Everyone thought the elephant story was hilarious. Of course, I made the mistake of telling it in front of Izzie who then made sure the entire hospital found out – sorry. And yes, I was laughing, I got a lot of weird looks from my patients that day._

_About the Clydesdales, I notice you conveniently forgot to mention that you withheld sex for three weeks after … even on Christmas and then when you finally forgave me Mark walked in on us doing it doggy style and you blamed the entire thing on me, like it was my fault the stupid horse peed on your shoes._

_Just the fact that you're there, Addison, is admirable. Sometimes I wish I was there – saving people for nothing more than the wordless thanks on the faces of their family, not for the money or the prestige or my reputation. We merged with Mercy West this week and all the residents have gone crazy with competition and I wish it was just the medicine without all this other crap._

_All Meredith and the others will talk about is not getting fired so your letters are a breath of fresh air. Some days, I honestly don't know what I'm doing. I think I'm stuck, and I don't know how to get out of it; all I do is wake up, operate and suture and reassure the ones that live – and then go back to bed._

_How did we end up here?_

_Derek_

_P.S. Maybe we should talk about it. It's been more than three years, Addison. We could just get it over with – say what needs to be said._

She scans his latest letter under the blanketing indigo sky, dotted with little diamonds that are the only light in the desert. There's dirt under her fingernails as she digs, and sand in places she didn't even know sand could reach and yet she finds her task so detestable that cleanliness seems like a far-off unattainable dream.

Addison always cries when she does this. The morgue was never a place she was happy to end up but, she thinks, if she could go back in time, she would appreciate the peaceful rest of _that _death.

Her shovel hits stone. She wipes a lone tear.

_You're never alone, _Derek had said, and though there are three others out in this forsaken desert she can't find it within herself to believe him. It was just bad luck that awarded her this job tonight, and the underlying melancholy mixes with the newborn guilt and manifests as a wave of new tears spilling down her cheeks.

Handiwork finished, Addison clambers out of the hole (she never fancied herself overly proud or pretentious but hands trained in piano and handshakes as a child ache this night) and kneels behind the six white silhouettes illuminated by the dim desert stars.

Six babies died that day, six babies with perfect chocolate skin and wisps of inky hair and evanescently bright with life before it was snuffed out.

Addison could bury all of them in this grave, get the job over with, and go curl up in her cot to seek out the elusive sleep, but she figures the least she can do in the face of so much tragedy and missed opportunity is dig all six graves.

As she arranges glimmering sand over the sixth and last grave, she hears a rustle to her left and turns to find Sam, grime decorating his eyebrows and lean body propped up by his shovel. Silently, he begins to assist her in covering the tiny white body.

"I didn't know you were out here tonight," she breathes.

"It was supposed to be Umar, but his fever's gone up and it's looking like malaria."

"Shit."

"Yeah. These people are dying right in front of our eyes and all I can think about is the fact that Maya has a boyfriend. His name is … is Cesar and her aunt says he's the nicest boy you'll ever meet, but … he could be holding my baby's hand right now. Sixteen year old girls come into this village pregnant every day and I'm worried about Maya's hands."

Grave finished, she and Sam fall into the lavender-tinged sand, and she lays a hand on his shoulder, the only comfort she can offer. He sighs and wraps an arm around her shoulders, and together they contemplate the paradoxes of the world they live in.

"I still haven't told Derek," she admits finally. "I should tell him, but … I just can't."

Sam raises an eyebrow. "You still haven't -"

"Nope."

"I thought you were writing to him or something."

"I am, but … we talk about other things. What we're doing, memories, patients. Not _that_."

"Derek can't talk about it if he doesn't know," Sam points out. "But at least you two are talking. Me and Nae … honestly I don't know what we're doing."

"She loves you, Sam."

"I know. Some days I just wonder how we got so screwed up." She nods in answer, thinking of Derek's musing of _how did we end up here? _and although she would pay vast sums of money to know, she is more concerned with _Where the hell are we going?_


	7. December 2, 2009

**December 2, 2009**

Okay, so it's silly. Silly to decorate a tropical village for a holiday they've celebrated without decorations for years, ridiculous to think a palm tree can replace a noble or a Douglas fir, much less than that it can hold ornaments, but it's her job to try. Some people, like her, depend on the normalcy of things like Christmas.

Of course, Christmas used to mean the heavenly scent of baking cookies, a tree so large Derek and Mark could hardly carry it, snowflakes that Derek kissed gently from her lips and cheeks. She's outgrown that level of bliss and innocence, the world isn't defined by such straight, bright lines any more. But as she hangs homemade baby Jesuses that honestly look more like voodoo dolls, she figures maybe it's more the idea that counts.

A snort from behind her interrupts her, and she turns to find Naomi staring at her palm frond garland. "You are ridiculous, you know that?" she asks incredulously.

"I most certainly am not. I'm decorating for Christmas, Naomi, like all the other normal people at the beginning of December!"

"Addison, it's ninety-five degrees."

"So?"

"Violet, tell her it's ridiculous."

"Violet, tell her she's a Grinch."

"You're both pathetic. Addison is pathetic for making Christmas cartoon references like a five-year-old, and Naomi is pathetic for actually caring. Okay? That's my professional opinion," Violet says without looking at either of them. Instead she hauls herself into a sitting position, frowns at the progress of her tan, and lays back down.

Addison sighs and returns to scoping out the next palm tree. She's not doing this for herself, not really. Okay, well she sort of is, but there's plenty of children in this village who have had their hearts torn apart by violence and abandonment and lies and maybe she thinks this will improve their lives just a little, make up for it just a little, a flimsy band-aid over a bullet hole.

If Derek were here … it's poisoning her slowly to think like this, but she can't help it … if Derek were here, he'd be beside her, arms full of makeshift ornaments. He'd hold the little brown-skinned children up to their roofs to hang old socks and try to teach the women how to make his mother's famous lasagna. God, she misses him.

But they're different now. And even as the tears fall and Naomi places a hand on her shoulder, because despite her disapproval, she knows her friend is only trying to protect her, she tells herself it's different now. Derek isn't here. That's partially her fault.

She hates Christmas.

_Dear Derek,_

_I miss those days too. It's easy to forget all the good times when things are tough, but I don't regret one second of our time together. I wouldn't trade all those memories and all the good times we had for anything, no matter how it ended. We may have grown apart, but at least we had those times._

_I'm sure you'll have kids someday, Derek. You'll be a wonderful father – the one who plays football with his kids and makes the other families in the neighborhood jealous. And even if Meredith isn't ready to have kids now, I'm sure she'll come around._

_We shouldn't talk about if things had been different. I wonder about it, sometimes, but … we can't go there. We shouldn't. It's not right, it's painful, and it's not fair to either of us or Meredith. What happened, happened. We don't get a redo._

_I can't believe you told everybody about the elephant thing, Derek. Great. That's humiliating. Everyone in Seattle already knows a bit too much about my personal life, if you know what I mean. It reminds me of the time you told your entire family over the phone that you couldn't come over because I was making you go to the store to buy tampons._

_And I did not withhold sex for three weeks. It was two and a half at THE MOST._

_Things here are going pretty good, we're decorating for Christmas (well, I am while Naomi laughs at me and Violet tans). And I was banned from helping make Christmas dinner, apparently because all the women said I was a nuisance when it was my turn to help cook. I'm not that bad of a cook. You liked that crab chowder I made, didn't you?_

_Saving lives is different here – refreshing, without all the pretension, but a lot more stressful. Wow, I can't believe you guys merged with Mercy West. How's Richard taking it? I haven't heard much from him lately, but he's probably busy._

_Our practice was affected financially by the recession, but we didn't have to lay anyone off – that must be tough. Everyone feels lost sometimes, Derek. You were different, when you were younger; you always knew what you wanted and how to get it. But just because that goes away and you don't know precisely where your life is going isn't necessarily a bad thing, Der. It just means you have some thinking to do. And you save lives every single day – never underestimate that._

_How did we end up here? Some days I honestly don't know. Maybe we were too happy – happier than anyone had the right to be – or too complacent. This is life, though, I guess._

_Addison_

_P.S. What needs to be said, Derek? That you made a mistake? That I shouldn't have been there, I should have left you alone instead?_

The rumpled envelope, familiar script barely visible, hangs out of the back pocket of his jeans as he bends to heft the latest cardboard box from the driveway into Meredith's cozy house. Moving in with his sort-of-fiancé-sort-of-wife was an idea he dreamed up to restore the serenity that has deserted him. Instead he feels even more lost, swamped by the uncertainty of middle age and disillusionment. It doesn't help that his ex-wife's words, written in Addison's unique calligraphy with a red pen that stopped working every few lines (he can see the frustrated scratches) provide him with a tranquility he hasn't known in years.

There is a grunt beside him and he turns to see Alex with another large box in his hands. "Jeez, Shep, how much fucking stuff do you need?" he snaps, sweat dripping form his temples to his black wife-beater tank top.

"See, this proves it, Meredith!" Cristina yells triumphantly from her position on the floor in front the TV. Apparently the driven resident found a microscope program similar to the one he'd used on his miracle spinal tumor surgery and now tearing her away from it is nearly impossible. He's pretty sure those are his George Washingtons down there she's infesting with chicken pox, but he learned long ago not to mess with Meredith's 'person.'

"It does not, Cristina."

"Does too. Not only does McDreamy have perfect hair, but he also lugs around junk like a frickin woman. This proves it."

"Dude, what kind of shit do you even have in here?" Alex scoffs, throwing yet another of Derek's boxes onto the floor (he didn't realize he and Addison used to have that much stuff) and beginning to yank and tear the tape off.

"Uh, that's nothing," Derek says, attempting nonchalance. The box is labeled 'DINING ROOM' but the problem is that Addison took what dining room stuff wasn't left to rot in New York along with their shattered dreams. Besides, she always labeled it 'D. ROOM', he knows from when they helped Mark move.

"Oh, come on, Derek," Meredith cajoles. "Cristina won't laugh too much when she sees how many different sets of silverware you have."

"We don't need to unpack this. Really. Actually, I was going to take it to Goodwill," he blurts hurriedly, and Alex backs up, clearly bored, but Cristina moves in with a wicked look on her face, and, with one swipe, rips the tape off of the box. All he can do is stand in horror and watch as Cristina plunges her hand in and comes up with a _very _distinctly shaped object.

"Ew!" she shrieks. "McDreamy and Satan's sex toys!"

Derek can feel the blood rising, painting his face a bright vermilion, and he makes a desperate reach for the box but the others are crowded around, like rubberneckers by a car crash. Meredith stands off to the side, staring intently at him, as if she'd never truly seen him before. And sure, they have hot sex frequently, or used to have hot sex frequently, but Addison used to do some pretty kinky things in the early days of their marriage, things that …

Things that she would literally murder him for letting her former colleagues find out about.

"Hey Derek? Do you think we could have this?" Izzie asks brightly, dangling something in front of his face that brings back some _really_ inappropriate memories … Addison was going to kill him. Literally kill him. Seeing his face, Izzie replaces it carefully. "This is probably a bad time, huh?"

Cristina is still rolling around the floor laughing, Alex is scrutinizing the box carefully, and Izzie is still eyeing the object out of the corner of her eye. He really doesn't think it can get worse than his fiancé and her friends discovering what he and his ex-wife used to do in bed, but the doorknob turns and in walks Mark.

"Either you're running a porn shop out of the garage or Derek started unpacking his and Addie's old stuff, because that's the only place you're going to find such an abundance of … toys. Merry Christmas."


	8. December 29, 2009

**December 29, 2009**

"Didn't they fire you?" Nurse Brenda asks Derek curiously as she hands him Edward Atherton's chart on the way to their patient's room. Her tone is light and teasing, and in light of the chaos that has become  
Seattle Grace Derek knows she doesn't really care whether he was fired or not if he can do his job and do it well.

"Yes, technically, but I refuse to be fired," Derek informs her, smiling his famous smile. "World renowned neurosurgeons are stubborn that way."

"Well, I guess Mr. Atherton's in luck then."

"Has it metastasized?" Derek asks, concerned, mapping out Edward's tumor behind his eyelids, a perfect image of the black and white scan, the invading tumor on display for him to study and see.

"No, but the tumor's grown," she says, holding out the scan for him to see.

"Shit," he breathes, and sighs as he enters Edward's room, who is waiting with his usual grumpy disposition, slate eyes hidden behind spectacles that supposedly aid him in deciphering the ancient piece of paper in front of him.

"I thought you got fired," the man grumbles.

Derek merely rolls his eyes as he examines the scans again, Edward always has something to complain about it and since he's been asked that question multiple times today, he decides to ignore it. "Mr. Atherton, the tumor is growing," he says softly.

"I've already told you, Dr. Shepherd, just to leave me be. I don't want you cutting into my brain. Just let me die."

"I still believe I can get it out."

"Bullshit. You don't even work here."

"Surely there must be something for you to live for."

"Listen, boy," Edward says, displaying an amazing amount of energy as he sits straight and points one gnarled finger at Derek. "You're young and full of passion and I can see that you have something to live for – something you haven't done, a part of your life that hasn't been fulfilled. But I'm old and tired and I spent five years in that goddamn war and I'm done. I want to see Phoebe again."

"No offense, Edward, but I thought you and Phoebe were only married for a few months before you went to war and when you got back, she died. You hadn't seen her in over five years."

Edward harrumphs and rolls his eyes. "You modern idiots and your technology. Can't appreciate the value of the written word. Letters, you moron," Edward snaps at Derek, misinterpreting the shooting of his eyebrows up under one perfect curl of coal black hair. "We wrote each other letters."

_Dear Addison,_

_Sometimes I don't know what to do with them – all the memories, I mean. How can all that time, all those years, all those birthdays and Christmases culminate into nothing? What did it mean? That we were happy once, and now we're just supposed to forget about it and try to be happy some other way?_

_You are probably reminding me, in your head, that _I _divorced _you_, but it all was happening so quickly. I thought I knew what I wanted, and don't get me wrong, I'm happy with Meredith. I just don't understand sometimes how I'm supposed to let you go and build a new marriage._

_Thanks, Addie. I'm sure you'll be an amazing mother too – I just hope whoever the father is can cook. I can see you with a little redheaded girl, or a little blue-eyed boy, bribing them to go 5__th__ Avenue shopping with you. I worry, sometimes, that when Meredith says we'll have kids someday she actually means we'll have kids never, but I just don't know. I can't read her, she closes up sometimes and it scares me._

_I think about if things had been different. I know I shouldn't, but if I had been a little less selfish, and around a little more, or if Mark wasn't … there … would we have had a brownstone full of kids? But you're right. We don't get a redo. Life isn't a spreadsheet on Excel where you can press undo if you mess up._

_The elephant thing was too good not to tell. And the time I told my family I was out buying tampons for you – you know how my mom is. She wouldn't let it go. And I didn't know I was on speakerphone, so when everyone started laughing … well, it wasn't really my fault. And by the way, you definitely withheld sex for at least three weeks after the Clydesdale thing._

_I'm not surprised you got thrown out of the kitchen – or wherever they cook over there. You and a scalpel? Magic. But you and a spatula? Might as well start calling an ambulance._

_I hope you had a good Christmas. Mine was pretty quiet. We mostly just had people from the hospital at a party in Callie's apartment. She and Arizona got in a fight, though, and it wasn't pretty. And then Mark made everything worse by falling onto the counter while he was playing drunken football with Karev. There went the rest of the alcohol, but he didn't even care because he was already drunk, the bastard. Anyway. It was interesting, but nothing like Christmas in New York._

_Richard is … tense. Honestly, some days I don't even recognize him anymore. He fired me, except I'm refusing to be fired._

_My patient said something today – something that just made me feel like I was missing something huge. I'm sure everyone feels this way sometimes, but what do they do? Live their lives with a huge hole? Or go on some misguided journey of self-discovery? Life really used to be easier._

_Der_

_P.S. I'm glad you didn't leave me alone. I've tried, so many times, to regret it, but I can't and you shouldn't._

"He didn't even mention it!" Addison fumes, throwing the swan white paper, covered in flowing black script, down to the floor of her hut. "Didn't even mention that he let a bunch of residents – who used to be my colleagues – find a box of our old sex toys!"

"If he didn't mention it," Sam frowns quizzically, "then, uh, how do you know?"

"Callie told me, she had it from Cristina, who was freaking there! And then, apparently, he started handing them out like it was frickin Halloween …"

"I thought you said he just gave one to Izzie," Naomi corrects.

Addison glares at her friend, but before she can open her mouth, Cooper interrupts, "What kind were they?"

"What?"

"What kind of sex toys were in the box?" he repeats with the patience of a pediatrician as he cocks his head to the side. "I'm just trying to imagine -"

"Don't!" Addison shrieks. "No! No imagining! In fact, no mentioning this ever again. There was a lot of stuff in that box. A lot of …"

"Okay, we get it," Naomi says quickly. "Speaking of Derek, have any … other subjects come up?"

"No, Nae. I'm supposed to tell him in a letter? How would I tell him? Oh hi, Derek, in case you didn't know …" she snorts sarcastically.

"Tell him," Sam advises her. "You'll feel better once you do, once you don't have it hanging over you."

"He's gonna hate me," Addison whimpers. "We're talking, actually talking, for the first time in years and he's forgiven me. He tells me things … things like he used to tell me. And if I tell him, he'll hate me all over again and everything will be ruined."

"Don't you think you've kept it a secret long enough?" Naomi asks gently, laying a hand on Addison's bronzed shoulder, off of which hangs a pale green cotton t-shirt that probably once could have gone out in normal society.

"I was kind of planning on keeping it for the rest of my life."

"Right," Sam snorted, then adopted a more appropriate visage as Addison shot him another glare. "I'm just saying it's unlikely," he defended.


	9. January 17, 2010

**January 17, 2010**

She's hot. In more ways than one. It's not just the gritty sweat that creeps up in the silky black night, forming droplets that chase each other down her neck. It's not just that monsoon season is approaching and she can feel the humidity leeching her energy. No, it's just that it's been a little too long.

Okay, a lot too long.

She's wearing just a cotton candy pink ribbed tank top and a pair of white boyshort panties, and her hand creeps down to rest on the area of skin just below her bellybutton. It's tempting, but it isn't the kind of release she needs.

Voices sound outside the hut amongst the distant, building thunder, and she allows the diaphanous sheet to flutter to her knees as she swings her long, tanned legs out of bed, crimson locks damp with sweat as they frame her face. A figure approaches. Her heart beats in overtime, because this is _impossible._

Not even the normal kind of impossible. The kind where she wonders where the hell Addison Forbes Montgomery is because she sure as hell can't remember being replaced by Cinderella.

"Derek."

His smile is brilliantly wicked against the shock of white sand, and all else melts away at the sight of him, even the unfeasibility of the situation, even the improbability, the hesitation, the doubt. It doesn't occur to her how thin the walls of her hut are, how damp and sweaty the cot they fall onto is, the fact that she barely trusts him and slightly resents him.

It all fades at the touch of his hungry lips, nipping, sucking, pecking hers until they are cherry red and swollen. The heat overwhelms her, rendering her not only incoherent but insensible as well. She can only blindly seek out his lips through a veil of passion and desperate need, but he evades her, moving his mouth to the taut cream skin of her neck. He's going to leave marks, she's sure, but she can't bring herself to care.

The soft, pale pink fabric of her tank top is lifted off her body by his impossibly gentle hands, and his lips replace the material, quieting her shivers and leaving trails of fire behind. He dips his tongue into her bellybutton as she struggles to pull his shirt from his shoulders, and she can't help the faint, surprised shriek that she emits. Her hands clutch at his bare shoulders as they both turn toward the entrance in slow motion, breathing labored, but not a sound is heard in the village.

He hooks his thumbs into the top of her panties, brushing the delicate skin there, and she writhes delightedly in his arms, trying to keep her eyes open long enough to get lost in an ocean of blue. She can't, though. This is far too wonderful to bear.

The white material has reached her knees, the cool night breeze teasing her bare skin, when from far away languid voices sound. She sits bolt upright and finds herself clothed again, breathing heavily, sheet constricting her tangled limbs.

Derek isn't there.

Tears sting her eyes as she quickly stills her breathing, glancing at the other side of the hut before crossing to the door and letting the wind cool the beads of sweat decorating the nape of her neck. A little ways away, she spots Pete with his hand on the small of Violet's back, leading her away from civilization. She can still hear their voices.

And Addison wants to be angry at them for interrupting, but she can't, because what they have is real, viable and tangible. What she has is a few leftover memories, a fantasy, and a secret.

So she channels her anger into the letter she's writing to the man in question, because truth be told her wreck of a life is at least partially his fault.

_How DARE you, Derek Christopher Shepherd? How dare you! Why don't you just hand out all our old possessions like freaking candy, why don't you? In fact, I wouldn't give a shit if you handed out the China or the silverware or even my antique reindeer from Switzerland. But sex toys? Seriously? Seriously!_

_Remind me to murder you when I get back. Maybe they even have a witch doctor here. They still have those, right? I have lots of money, Derek. Lots. I can probably pay for them to make a voodoo doll of you, you know._

_Or I could just ask Callie to stab you with a scalpel for me. She'd probably do it._

_I don't know what to do with the memories, or all the old sex toys either, I guess. We were happy, and I suppose we just have to remember those times and move on, because they're over and we're never getting them back. I don't want to say they mean nothing, but really, besides us, who really cares? I don't think Meredith wants to hear about how you broke your ankle hanging Christmas lights one year, or about the sugar cookies that were pretty much the only thing I knew how to make. I guess we just have to leave it all behind._

_You _did _divorce me, Derek. You made the choice to sleep with Meredith and get a divorce, not me. You have to let me go – not for your sake, but for mine. You have Meredith, but I don't have anyone. I need you to let me go so I can stop thinking of you every time some guy kisses me, because I don't want to die alone._

_I'm not really sure about motherhood at this point. I just … I don't know. But take Meredith up to see the newborns. That ought to change her mind. I don't know why I'm giving you advice on how to convince your sort of wife to have a child other than the fact that you deserve to be a father, no matter what happened between us._

_You shouldn't think about if things had been different. They never will be. You're right, we don't get a redo, and trust me, no matter how much you think you want one right now, you really don't. For the last two or three years of our marriage, we were messed up, Derek. I … before Mark … I was planning on leaving you. Just so you know. I don't want to hurt you, but … it wouldn't have been different._

_Don't make fun of my cooking. It isn't that bad – people eat it, you know._

_Christmas here was interesting. Hot, and very sandy, with homemade gifts made out of things in the nearby junkyard, but satisfying all the same. We taught the kids Christmas carols in English, and although I'm sure they had no idea what they meant, it was still fun. Take care of Callie for me, will you? She told me about the fight with Arizona. And tell Mark he's an idiot._

_You don't always get to know everything, Derek. That's part of life. Sometimes you get lost – stop whining and do something about it. I'm not always going to be here to help you figure it out. Life is about falling down – living is about getting back up. Trust me. The last few times I barely managed to get myself off the ground._

_Addison_

_P.S. It's not that I regret it. It's just that it should have never happened – it shouldn't have ever entered our minds._

The paper drifts slowly toward the floor, like a dying bird, right before his eyes, but he can't bring himself to stop its motion. He can't move at all, in fact.

_Before Mark … I was planning on leaving you. I was planning on leaving you. I was planning …_

Derek abruptly shuts his eyes, trying to block out his ex-wife's torturing words. Lately he has taken to imagining him and her and a brood of kids in the Brownstone, assuming he hadn't left, assuming he had forgiven her then and not several years too late.

But she was going to leave.

_We're Addison-and-Derek and we don't quit!_

The couch, over starlit hours, molds itself to his frozen form. Discordantly, his mind can't seem to keep still, mulling over lost memories almost faster than he can comprehend, trying to picture his ex-wife, scarlet hair cascading around her shoulders, as she wrote the letter. There was a bitter edge of anger he hadn't detected from her previously, not the 'you let a bunch of residents find our sex toys' anger, but deep buried anger, directed, he guessed, at his second thoughts.

Displaying his insecurities for her to see was almost disturbingly easy, but when he ripped bandages off her healed wounds too, well, apparently she didn't appreciate that. What did it mean? Did she wish things had gone differently too?

One thing was for sure, if she didn't care, surely she would find it simple to brush off all his hooded suggestions of other lives that didn't exist. She must think about it too, sometimes; the very idea causes pleasure to bloom in his heart. Even if he can't have her, he doesn't want to completely lose her.

Lost in his thoughts as he is, he doesn't register Meredith hovering, unsure, at the foot of the stairs, afraid to enter the living room that technically belongs to her. Still, the paper catches her eye, and he comes to his senses in time to find her sage eyes filled with anger and hurt as she scans Addison's letter.

"Derek, what the hell -"

"Give it to me. Give me the letter, Mer."

Against her will, it seems, she places it in his hands, and he tucks it away, but there's no erasing what she's read. "You knew I was writing to Addison," he accuses softly.

"Yeah, I knew you wrote one letter. _One _letter, Derek, _one. _I don't think one letter between exes is much cause for worry. But you wrote that in September, and now it's January."

"We're friends."

"Really? Cause I don't think you talk about us having kids with Mark or Richard, Derek. You don't tell them that sometimes you wonder what would have happened if you'd stayed with your ex-wife! How would you feel if I was talking to Finn about something like that?"

"Don't bring Finn into this!" Derek explodes.

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because you dated him for, what, a few weeks? I spent eleven years married to Addison, and a year and a half with her before that!"

"Well, you'd think after more than three years of being divorced you wouldn't feel the need to write to her all the time!"

"You talk to Cristina every freaking day, Meredith! Why is Addison any different?"

"I've never had sex with Cristina. I've never left you for Cristina. I was never married to Cristina!"

"Well, neither was I," Derek points out.

"You're unbelievable," Meredith shouts, her skinny form rigid with anger as she glares at him. "Figure out what you want, Derek, or you're going to end up alone and it's going to be your own damn fault."


	10. February 8, 2010

**February 8, 2010**

"Mer! _Mer_!" Derek calls after his fiancé, but she isn't talking to him, again, and he's getting fed up. Technically, he did nothing wrong, technically, pouring his soul out to his ex-wife in letters doesn't leave any vows unsanctified, at least as far as he knows.

It's immature and he's growing weary of the constant games, the underhanded tricks and unspoken words. He's done that, he's been an intern and a resident, he's been petty and screwed people over but now he's done. He wants to hold a child or three in his arms, wants to come home to stability and not insecurity. He's tired of having to prove himself to Meredith because all Addison asked was that he love her and stay with her 'til death do them part.

Not that he was able to uphold those most simple vows, in the long run, but he hopes that his mistakes have taught him to value what's in his life. Conflict isn't necessarily his thing, although Meredith seems to thrive on it.

Giving up, he checks on the sixteen-year-old girl, post-op after the successful removal of a brain tumor, and Mrs. Nicolas, whose craniotomy had been a nightmare the night before. Last, he visits Mr. Atherton's room. Weeding his memories of Phoebe from his decaying mind hasn't been easy, but Derek feels an inexplicable draw to the story.

"Met your fiancé earlier today," Edward tells Derek as he shines a light in his eyes and glances at his impossible CTs. He doesn't know how to fix the old man, who furthermore doesn't want to be fixed, but he can't let go, not yet.

"Oh, yeah, Meredith's interested in neuro," Derek says neutrally. "She's also not talking to me."

"Well, why the hell not? If you're gonna marry her, do it right."

"She's not speaking to me because … because she found out about the letters I've been sending to my ex-wife," Derek states slowly, unsure why he's telling this ancient relic of WWII.

"You're …"

"Yep."

"Well, letters are the way to win a woman's heart. You just need to decide whose heard you want to win," Edward says wisely, pointing one gnarled finger at Derek.

"Alright, Mr. Atherton, thank you, but I think we should discuss your surgery now."

The question calls him unforeseeable confusion, but it doesn't stop him from penning a new letter to Addison the first chance he gets.

_Dear Addison,_

_Believe me, I was just as embarrassed as you about the discovery of our old … uh … stuff. I didn't offer it out by any means, but Izzie asked and I was so flustered that I guess I agreed. Next time you pack a box like that, though, you might want to label it a bit more clearly._

_By the time you get back you'll probably be angry at me about something else anyway, so no use reminding you. And you've threatened to kill me more times than I can count, so I don't think another time is going to make much of a difference._

_Callie is more likely to stab Arizona at this point than me. They broke up a week ago. I don't know exactly why, but they've been having problems for a long time. Mark says to tell you he's taking care of her as best as he can._

_What I've been trying to tell you, Addison, is that I don't know how to leave it all behind. I'll try, if that's what you really want, but I simply don't know how. I guess people do this all the time when they break up, I just don't understand why it's so hard for me. Maybe because I suppressed all memories of you for so long that now I'm paying for it._

_You don't need to remind me that I slept with Meredith. I know that, okay? I'm reminded of it every time I wake up to blonde hair instead of red. And I've tried to let you go, Addison, but does letting you go mean we can't be friends? What was the point of it all, then?_

_You're not going to die alone. I promise._

_You should know that Meredith found your last letter. I didn't mean for her to, but she did, and now, well, you know how Seattle Grace is. I'm sorry. The gossip will die down at some point, but I'm already sick of it. Plus Meredith isn't speaking to me, except when she has to._

_I know we were messed up, and I know before Mark it was my fault – all my fault. But why, after you slept with him, did you beg me to stay if you were just going to leave me? Why did you come after me and endure my indifference, as you called it, if you were going to leave first? Does that mean we were doomed from the beginning?_

_I'm glad you had a good, albeit unusual, Christmas. Mark says he doesn't appreciate the idiot comment, although he did tell Karev that it was him you called an idiot. He's still in neonatal, by the way, and said to tell you he delivered conjoined twins earlier this week, all by himself. I can't believe it sometimes. How the hell did you turn Alex Karev into a neonatal surgeon? _

_I don't think I've stopped falling. Not since I left you. Everything has happened so quickly and I haven't had the time to get back up, so I don't know how you do it. I'm sorry for everything that happened between us._

_Derek_

_P.S. Happy Valentine's Day_

_P.P.S. You don't regret it? Because no offense, Addison, but refusing to talk about it doesn't exactly scream no regrets._

"Okay, seriously, what is wrong with you, Addison? You've been strange and distant for the last month." Naomi's voice is lightly accusatory and Addison glances at her bare feet guiltily, studying the sand between the bright red toenails instead of answering her friend. She painted all the girls' toenails last night and used the last of her favorite nail polish, but she has learned over the past five months that there are more important things than Fifth Avenue #5.

"Nothing's wrong, Nae," Addison claims as she hands a plastic bowl of sliced cantaloupe, banana, and strawberry to the next child in line. The vivid fruits are inhaled the second the starving girl receives them, and Addison watches chocolate swallow up carnation red before looking at Naomi.

"Don't lie to me, Addison."

The thing is, she's lying. The fantasy she'd had about Derek three weeks ago has been eating at her; somehow happiness in the hands of someone else can become poisonous. Not to mention the other secret she holds close to her heart. Or the fact that she's thinking of not returning to LA at the end of the month but instead staying in the barren desert delivering babies without the glamour.

"Is this about Derek?" Naomi prompts when Addison's lips pour forth no enlightenment.

"Isn't everything, to me?" Addison laughs bitterly. Sleeping with Mark, moving to LA, wanting a baby, leaving Noah, it was all about Derek, in the end. His power to influence her life has not faded, instead he acts as a guiding presence, memories of him offering guilt or reason or encouragement when needed.

"What does that mean?"

"He's everywhere, Nae, okay? You might not know what it's like, because divorced or not, Sam has always been there for you. But Derek? He's here in all the wrong ways. I can't hang a freaking ornament without thinking of him, and I can't kiss a guy without comparing him to Derek, and I can't even have a freaking sex dream about anyone else!"

"Addison!" Naomi chastises, and she bites her lip, remembering the innocent children surrounding them. She rests her hand on the head of a small boy at her side and then quickly scoops some of the juicy, melting fruit into the next bowl with her hand. Hunger being the prevalent emotion in most of the gathered kids (she has learned that hunger can in fact be an emotion, a consuming, greedy, desperate one), they don't notice her slip up.

"You had a sex dream about _Derek_?" Naomi mutters a few minutes later.

"Well we didn't exactly get to the sex part," Addison mumbles, "but yeah, basically."

"Maybe you should -"

"_Don't _say talk to Violet. Please. I talk to Violet as a friend, and I enjoy her company, but I don't want her going all psycho-babble on me."

"You've been divorced for nearly four years, Addison. You haven't been in another real, healthy relationship, much less dated for more than a month or two at a time. And then there's -"

"Don't -!"

"I know, I know, don't say it," Naomi rolls her eyes. "But seriously, no wonder you can't let go of him."


	11. February 27, 2010

**February 27, 2010**

After six months in the harsh desert, becoming so skinny (she can't resist the pitiful eyes begging for food, so she often goes without hers) that few of her old clothes fit anymore, Cairo is a mirage of flashing lights and tall buildings and she used to live in New York but the bustle of a city after so long is still overwhelming.

After a brief look at the towering golden pyramids and the crowded streets of the lower city, she sits with her friends, martini in hand, as they wait for their plane. The alcohol feels refined against her lips, different from that that they make from fruit in the village, or the cheap bear occasionally imported. She hasn't forgotten how to be Addison Forbes Montgomery, but she's still staring at her plastic spoon a little as she dips it in her sundae before practically having a mouth orgasm.

"You sure you want to stay here?" Sam calls out, laughing at her expression. "Cause you and that ice cream look a little personal, there, and it wouldn't last two minutes out in the desert."

She wrinkles her nose at Sam before turning her eyes to Naomi and seeking reassurance in the familiar, beautiful chocolate face. "I've never done it on my own before," Addison whispers to her friend, afraid, because Charlotte and Cooper are gathering up their bags, Violet is pulling Lucas, the small African boy she and Pete adopted, toward the gate, and they're all leaving her.

"Addie, you can do it. You've dealt with it on your own before …"

"But you've always been there, when I can't do it anymore, when I need help, or someone to tell me it's gonna be okay. I've always had help, even if I was technically alone. But Nae …"

Naomi embraces her, pulling her close, and she inhales the vanilla scent of her best friend's raven curls before pulling away. She hasn't lived without Naomi since she moved to LA. She hasn't lived without anyone since she met Derek. And now she's alone. Well, not completely alone. But still.

"I can't."

"You can, and you know it. You don't have to be perfect, Adds. It's okay to ask for help, if you need it."

"I know."

"You sure you don't want to come? The flight isn't booked," Naomi offers, but she shakes her head and bites her lip, because hard as it is to let go of her figurative security blanket, she senses that she needs to. Still, her fingers shake around her martini glass, rattling it against the wooden arm of the chair facing the window as their plane (her eyes followed it all the way through the twisting maze runway) launches itself into the clear blue sky.

_Dear Derek,_

_How would you like me to label it? 'Derek and Addison's sex toys?' 'X-rated bedroom?' Not that it matters, because us having to label something like that again, together, would be a cause for alarm._

_When have I ever threatened to kill you? Except when I threw that flowerpot at your head. And when you dropped my new nail polish in the toilet. Okay, maybe I have. Maybe I'll even make good on it someday._

_Callie hasn't written in a while, and I'm worried. Remind Mark that sex can't be the only coping method – okay, I know that's mean, and I should give Mark more credit, but … Callie's been through a lot. Just make sure she's okay, that they're both okay._

_After the divorce, it was hard for me too- hard to let go of all the memories, the third of my life that I shared with you. I didn't know how to share it with anyone else, or how to lean on anyone else. But you've gotta learn, Der. I put you in a box, to deal with it. You may have suppressed it until now, being happy with Meredith, but please, don't bring this back up. Don't regret it now, because it's too late._

_If we can't let each other go and stop going over our mistakes like this … then maybe yes, we can't be friends for a while. I care about you, and you'll always be a part of my life, but if we're friends like you and Meredith were friends … that's an emotional affair, Derek, and that would be unspeakably wrong. So you tell me what this is._

_And if Meredith's upset … I know how much you love her. So, um, you don't have to write anymore. I won't hold it against you, I promise. But this is your second chance – don't make the same mistakes. Put her first. The gossip isn't what I'm worried about – God knows I've endured enough of it not to care. But if you let her get away again, Derek, if you put us through all that for nothing, well, I'll kind of hate you._

_I didn't want to leave you, I wanted you to pay attention to me and notice me and come home more than once every week and a half. It was sad that I had to sleep with your best friend to get a reaction out of you, and honestly, that's not how I planned on it happening. I just … Mark cared, and he was there when you weren't, and it just happened. I hoped, however briefly, that you would fight for us, but you left. You got to leave, not me. I should have dealt with it differently, but like I told you, Derek, by that time I wasn't thinking at all._

_I didn't really think Karev would ever go for neonatal, I intended it as a punishment, but I guess he had it in him all along. I saw that, but then again, I thought I saw other things too, so … well, I'm glad he's still in neonatal. At least I did my job right while in Seattle._

_Thanks for saying sorry, Derek. I'm sorry too. Sorry that our marriage came to this, I always thought we'd be the old, wrinkly couple who bickers over ridiculous things. But we're both happy now, or on our way to happy, so I'm glad we can forgive each other._

_I suppose I should also mention – Derek, I know you wanted me to come to Seattle for a visit before I went back to LA, but the thing is, um, I'm not coming back. W-I'm staying here. It's been good for me. Sam and Nae – everyone else is coming back, but I don't know when I am. I need more time to think, more time to figure out what the hell I'm doing. I'm sorry._

_Addie_

_P.S. We have been talking about it! What else is there to say? It's the past now, Derek, can we please let it go?_

_P.P.S. We've been able to hear grenades going off in the distance for the last three days. The whining before they hit keeps me from sleeping._

He shouldn't be here. No one knows he's here.

The burning of Ivar's clam chowder against the inside of his wrist could be considered penance, he supposes, because he's definitely not supposed to be here. Not in this terminal, where Addie's flight will arrive from JFK any minute. (He'd looked it up and her flight was supposed to leave Cairo, land in New York, and then come to Seattle.)

This isn't right.

Her unopened letter is in his hand, but his eyes are trained on the misty glacier sky of February, as planes land from destinations unknown and deposit their passengers here, in this small, rainy terminal. His heart probably shouldn't be beating this fast.

Meredith is, right at this moment, in a bakery only a few blocks from Seattle Grace, pacing through pastries piled high in icing, probably wondering whether he likes white or chocolate or even strawberry cake, and what filling, and whether to put a tiny plastic couple on the top of it. He can see her, harried and awkward, with Cristina as her companion, who is probably poisoning his fiancée with her dark views of weddings in general.

He should be there. He's getting married in May, just a few months away now, and there's so much to do, such a myriad of details to work through, like the knots he used to tease out of scarlet curls when they showered together …

The number of his flight is called (he had to buy a ticket to get in here, because of new security protocols set in place after 9/11, but he doesn't mind, not only because he has plenty of money but because he was there that day. All three of them were.) but he ignores it and instead watches Addison's plane pull slowly into the correct terminal. It takes nearly twenty minutes for the first person to appear, and he becomes worried as those who are clearly first class exit first, toting expensive carry-ons; he would have expected her to be among them because he's almost positive Addison has never flown coach in her life.

When the last passenger exits, a woman pulling three little kids along, who are all screaming at her in a foreign language Derek is too disturbed to identify at the moment. Surely … surely nothing could have happened to her, right? He'd know … somehow, he's not sure how, but if something happened to Addison in the war ransacked desert of Sudan …

Finally he cracks open her letter, and upon finishing it, sinks down in the nearest chair. She's alive and well, albeit now in direct danger (thinking about her anywhere close to fiery explosions makes him sick to his stomach) and Sam and Nae and everyone are safe, but she's not.

She didn't come back.

His cell phone rings six times in the next hour, but he doesn't move, simply sits in the terminal and watches the streamlined air traffic.


	12. March 20, 2010

**March 20, 2010**

His pager rouses him just as sleepy stars begin to blink and show their silvery faces to the moon, and as he hurries out to his Land Rover, teeth chattering, he throws a glance to the sky, comforted by the fact that Addison is looking at that same moon.

It's far away, but he prays that she'll keep looking up at that moon, even as danger wraps unwelcome fingers around her. He has always hated feeling helpless, ever since his mother got off the phone one November night and told a littler version of himself that his father wouldn't be coming home anymore.

By the time he arrives at the hospital, pulling his scrub coat over an indigo sweater Addison had bought him in the early days of their marriage, Edward Atherton, the patient he'd been treating for months, had already joined his beloved Phoebe. The old man's face is peaceful in death in a way it never was in life, even in sleep – he looks satisfied, a little smug, and ultimately serene. He watches as workers from the morgue wrap up the frail husk of a body, and something like loss tugs at his heart.

"Dr. Shepherd?" Surprised, Derek looks up to find the body nearly out of the room and the nurses tidying up what is left. One of them has her arm extended, holding out a small bundle for him. "This is addressed to you."

He takes it from her, twists it around to read his name, scrawled in nearly illegible font across the faded writing of the first letter. And then he understands. Edward kept the letters Phoebe sent to him while he was fighting in WWII, and maybe she kept the ones he sent back.

Five years. It's never too late.

He shouldn't be thinking this.

What are the chances?

So he passes his 9 o'clock craniotomy off to 'Shadow' Shepherd and sinks down on the floor of the nearest on-call room, heart pounding as he pulls the rubber band binding the letters away and lets it flutter to the floor. Five years of correspondence. How long has it been since he's seen Addison again? A war ridden county. What was that he'd seen on the news about Sudan this morning?

The ancient paper is like eggshells between his fingers, and as he pulls the first envelope open and cradles the key to a couple's love and reconciliation carefully between his fingers, he wonders if he was wrong not to fight, wrong even now by not giving everything to either woman. He loves Meredith, but enough to send her love letters consistently for five years? He cares about Addison, but is it purely platonic still?

So he writes and tries to convince himself that the ink blue letters spell the truth without any omissions, but doesn't quite succeed.

_Addison,_

_I have to admit, I though you'd have had enough of the desert by now, but I guess I was wrong. If Africa is good for you, though, that's good. I want you to be happy – and we lost happiness in New York, I made sure you didn't have any in Seattle, and then even when you moved to Los Angeles … well, I just wanted to let you know that I understand, but if it's not safe there, you have to come home._

_I was thinking, maybe, when you come here (I don't know when you're planning to return) I could take you out or something? Show you the city, since we never really did that? The Space Needle can't compare to the Empire State Building, but it does have cute little viewfinders. We should get Chinese, too, Karev knows this great little place he's been keeping secret for who knows how long – anyway, sorry, rambling, you all about that, Adds. Let me know when you're planning on heading back._

_No, I suppose we will most likely never have to label another box of sex toys. And you've threatened to kill me more times than I can count._

_About Callie, Addison … well, I don't know if she's written you lately, but she … she and Mark … well, they're kind of together, I guess. I don't know how serious it is, but they've done stuff, and they have a history, and … yeah. Mark said to tell you he's going to take good care of her, and that he's committed, though. I think he's serious, Addie. Just don't freak out, okay?_

_I'm trying to put it in a box, Adds, but the closer it gets to my wedding, it's just all coming back now. I know it's not exactly convenient, but … I keep thinking about things, like how you looked for four leaf clovers in Central Park when we used to have picnics there, and how long you took to pick out flowers for our wedding. I don't know how not to bring it back up now._

_And I want to be friends, Addie, this is going to sound stupid, and you're going to yell, but I need you. Seattle is a soap opera with surgeries squeezed in wherever possible, and talking to you distances me from that. It's … we're friends, good friends, because I know so much about you and you know so much about me. What I did with Meredith when we were married, even before Prom … it was wrong, and I don't want to hurt you or her or anyone else like that ever again._

_Meredith may not be happy with it, but we still live in her house with her friends – and if I want to have a friend, other than Mark, who only talks about sex, baseball, and beer, and Richard, who's busy with hospital stuff, well, I can. I'm not neglecting Meredith to write, but she's still insecure about me – and you – even after all these years. I love her, I just … why is everything so hard?_

_I guess I just wish something could have been done. I know you tried to talk to me, and I brushed you off time after time, but I was afraid to face what our marriage had become, afraid that I wouldn't know how to fix it and you would look at me with tears in your eyes and I just couldn't. I'm sorry. I kind of understand about Mark, now, I guess. He was your friend too, and you saw more of him than me. In some ways I wish you would have left instead, because maybe I would have came to my senses and gone after you, but I guess we'll never know._

_I always saw you as the wrinkly old lady who nagged me about everything and me as the wrinkly old man with the defective hearing aid who had to beg you to repeat the commentary on the Yankees back to me, but of course you wouldn't. Even after all this time, sometimes I still think of that when I try to imagine what my life will be like in forty years, and it's weird that it won't. But I'm glad we're at this place now, because I'll always care about you. That's something I don't think I'll ever be able to erase._

_Please be careful – I can't believe you can hear actual grenades. I know you want to help these people, but these are troubled countries, and if they're in the middle of a war, well, there's only so much you can do. _

_Derek_

_P.S. It doesn't feel like it's in the past, especially lately. It's eating at me. I don't think we should keep it a secret anymore._

She has just reached Derek's very last sentence when the whining begins, sounding closer than she's used to. She spins, sending sand flying as she gazes at the small village that has become her impermanent home as the high shriek grows louder and louder. She barely has time to curl in a ball, letter against her heart and hands over her eyes before the grenade hits and the world explodes in sound and fire.

It's less dramatic than it sounded; she realizes as she sprints back, shoes dangling from limp fingers as her bare feet dig into the cool, moon-illuminated sand. She sees a few damaged huts and blown over tents, and, of course, the glow of lights turning on as people scurrying about, seeking out loved ones. Other than that, however, it seems fine, but her panic refuses to die down until she can see it with her own eyes.

"Ahduhson?" the sound of her name slows her, blue green eyes flashing around until she spots Miri on the ground, shards of pottery impaling her leg. She pulls one the woman's skinny nut-brown arms over her shoulder and heaves, feeling her companion wince as she does. At one time she probably could have lifted Miri, but these days she has little excess strength; all of it goes to patching up as many people as she can.

She leaves Miri in the capable hands of Dr. Cailen Olivarez, the muscular, honey-eyed doctor who had recently arrived from Chicago. He kneels beside the woman and speaks in soft, comforting words Addison can't quite make out.

"W-where … where -" she begins, trying to speak, but the words won't leave her lips. And despite only knowing her for a few weeks, Dr. Olivarez knows what she's trying to say.

"Everyone's fine, Addison."

"You're sure?"

"Of course – well, everyone who's not in here. But Kilanna brought Dai in, and …" She turns, following his glance to the three-month-old screaming on account of the burn on his shoulder. The flesh doesn't look seriously charred, just red and puffy, but they both know it can spell death for an infant of this age, especially one who won't receive medical care in a top-rate, and more importantly, sanitary facility.

Within no time the wound is bandaged and as disinfected as is possible, but even as she sways late into the night with him swaddled on her shoulder, hips rocking back and forth as years of experience have taught her, the baby's fever rises and he sobs through the night. She's aware of her other duties but also aware that someone will take care of them for her, and the only thing that escapes her notice is Cailen's gentle, tawny gaze upon her.


	13. April 11, 2010

**April 11, 2010**

It's funny, really. She's known for months, for longer even than other people's invitations have been out. But it still devastates her.

The delicate 'save the date', on paper the color of fresh cream and indented with flower patterns is sent late, as she knows Derek and Meredith are getting married in less than a month. Derek's note, though, on a separate piece of paper tells her that even though he knew she couldn't come, he still felt like he should send it to her, even if it was a little late.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, but it does. It's so hard to let go, harder than she ever could have imagined.

Crying, oddly enough, is not encouraged in the desert, as the moisture is required by the body for other more important functions, but common sense does not prevail over emotion in this case. They've been divorced for years, now, and he's been with Meredith for longer than he dated her before they got married. The raw, hard facts do little to ease the pain, however, so she pushes the invitation off the side of her cot and allows her body to mold itself to her sparse blankets as sobs shake her body.

She should've never emailed Derek in the first place, she realizes, because although she often pretends otherwise, she knows her strengths and weaknesses well and she knew that Derek was her one weakness, the one thing she'd never truly let go of. And now, because of one stupid mistake, Derek is entwined deep in her heart again with unbreakable tendrils comprised of eleven years and the subsequent memories.

No, her tear ducts are certainly not too proud today. And she would have been, if not content, resigned to sobbing hours away until she's needed if there hadn't been a knock on her tent flap followed a few seconds later by a narrow beam of light and a honey-gold head.

"Addison?"

She springs up, alarm staining blue-green eyes indigo as she eyes the intruder. The grenades tapered off in frequency and she hasn't heard one in three days now, but there's no escaping that Sudan is a war-riddled country and few things, if any, can be done without caution.

"Oh, sorry," a deep, smooth male voice says, sounding a bit embarrassed, and she recognizes Cailen a moment later, tan cheeks flushed rose because she's a tank top and a pair of embarrassing underwear with little cupcakes. "I didn't know you were … I just wondered …"

"It's okay," she assures him with a quick smile, seizing any distraction from her ex-husband and his impending nuptials. That this distraction is hot bordering on delicious is just a bonus. She grabs the low rise khaki shorts she's been wearing for the past five days (clothes aren't dirty here until they've been worn for a week, yet another example of something water can't afford to be wasted on) and pulls them over her long legs quickly. "What's wrong? More refugees? I didn't -"

He laughs and flashes her another smile, and his teeth are blinding in the desert sun, whiter than even the pale grains underneath their feet. And for the first time in a long while, practically since she can remember, she feels something, something that causes her heart to contract just a bit faster.

"No, no refugees, nothing like that. I just … things have been crazy lately, and I wondered if you wanted to take a break. There's an oasis about a mile from here …" he trails off and manages to look unsure even though he's nearly as tall as Mark and about as muscular.

"Sure," she agrees, trying to keep her voice neutral. "I'd love to. I just – are you sure you want to get, you know, involved, not that you're trying to get involved, just, well, you know…"

"I do know," he chuckles. "Stop rambling, Addison."

Derek called her Addie.

_Derek,_

_I guess I didn't really see myself staying here for longer either, considering I didn't really like it at first (I'm pretty sure I can't remember what a bath feels like, not to mention what chocolate tastes like) but it's just relaxing. Not in a vacation sort of way, I can't ever remember being more tired, but it's kind of like a vacation from society, I guess. None of that kind of stuff is important here, these people are just focused on surviving._

_It's not the safest time here, I guess, but … I just see all these tiny, malnourished babies and I can't leave. The grenade thing makes me nervous, but it's calmed down a bit lately. When I get back, I guess we could go out, but Derek … you don't seem to get that it's too late for you to do all the things you never did. I know you're getting married and you're nervous and you want to tie up loose ends, but there times you don't get a second chance._

_Callie finally wrote to me, I think she was afraid to tell me about her and Mark. And I was surprised, at first, but I really hope they can make it work. Callie can keep him in line, and he really cares for her, so it's a little weird, by best friend and my ex-mistress, but weirder things have happened. Make sure he doesn't hurt her, okay?_

_I'm glad we're talking through all this stuff Derek, and I'm glad we can be friends, but you can't go around saying stuff like that you 'need me.' You just can't, because you don't need me anymore, Derek, and I've been trying ever since the divorce not to need you._

_That's why our marriage ended, because we both gave up on fixing it. We were too lazy, too successful, too complacent. And by the time we realized our relationship was in trouble – well, I realized it – we'd grown apart and I didn't know you anymore. My sleeping with Mark was just the last straw, you already had one foot out the door and I put one out there too, just so I wouldn't be pining over someone who didn't want me. I wish things had turned out differently, that we hadn't ended eleven years like that, but it allowed you to find Meredith and me to find someone … someday … and we're friends. So it all worked out okay._

_Please don't say stuff like you can still imagine us old and wrinkly. You have someone to grow old with, Derek, and despite my best efforts, I don't. If you're going to say stuff, stuff like the old Derek used to say, please don't say it to me. I care about you too, Der, of course I do, but we're not Addison-and-Derek anymore._

_I'm being careful, don't worry. We haven't almost gotten blown up in a while, so that's good, plus I actually get to sleep._

_Addie_

_P.S. It wouldn't do any good to reveal it now, Derek. We waited too long; we're just going to have to live with it._

It's time. He's doing this again. Hairspray holds every root in place, his tux is painfully uncomfortable, and he is doused in the unmanly scent of flowers but is spared the embarrassment because everything smells of roses and sweet peas and lilac.

The world moves in slow motion as he turns his head out over the faceless crowd, all in pale suits and pastel dresses, all smiling widely, proudly, as if he and his bride belong to everyone. He can't see Mark fidgeting behind him, but he can feel his best man's slight unrest as his eyes search the congregation for his girlfriend, Callie, who got tied up in a surgery. Owen, Alex, and Derek's favorite brother-in-law, Dave flank him, across from Izzie, Lexie, and Cristina. The maid of honor is blonde, but she isn't looking at him.

He can't think who it is, but it doesn't bother him.

His mother is in the front row, looking as if all her dreams have come true, and occasionally glances over shoulder, clearly anticipating Meredith's entrance. His sisters, on the other hand, wear painfully polite but strained expressions, their various kids arranged around them.

_She_ isn't there, though, and he can't figure it out. There's no flash of brilliant red, no strawberry for his eyes to linger on, lavish, no crystal blue-green eyes staring at him, empty but somehow full of expression, no dress that is unintentionally more beautiful than the bride's. Addison isn't here.

The thought continues to bother him as the wedding march starts up, notes rising from the organ behind him, saturating the church with promises of the future to come. The bride starts down the isle on the arm of Richard Webber, whose smile exudes pride and adoration in equal measures as he marches beside her at an even pace.

It all happens very fast after that. Richard is placing a slim hand in his, stepping back, allowing Derek and Meredith to face the priest. He glances at his bride, beautiful in what he suspects is Vera Wang, but there's something off. Derek doesn't realize what it is until his vows are said, he lifts the veil over perfectly carved lips, high cheekbones, and hair the color of fire, cinnamon, and pomegranate if their essences could somehow be combined.

Addison. He's marrying Addison.

And then he wakes up, breathing hard, still imagining that he can taste Chanel No. 5 against his tongue. His restless wake rouses Meredith, who blinks sleepily and smooths a few sweaty curls away from his forehead. "You okay?" she whispers and he nods and allows her to kiss him although his mind is miles away, wondering what this latest development means.


	14. May 1 & 2, 2010

**May 1 & 2, 2010**

She's drinking an imported Coke, the carbonation burning her throat and formulating tears in her eyes, when it arrives. Two letters are not all that unusual, nobody writes as often as Derek but sometimes her friends' letters arrive at the same time as her ex-husband's. So she doesn't see it coming, merely continues to chug the dark amber liquid because she delivered three babies at the same time this morning and she's exhausted.

"You going to open those?" Cailen asks from his position beside her, his muscled forearm twitching as he tries to resist the can of Sprite the priest left covered in condensed moisture while he went to go resolve some domestic dispute.

She arches one eyebrow, pretending to just have noticed she has mail, nods, and manages to choke on her Coke. Cailen chuckles but his impossibly pale brown eyes narrow, watching her every move as she slips her fingers under the thick paper to tear the seal, she knows he's curious but this isn't a discussion she's ready to have.

But this thing Derek has flung halfway across the world for her is not, in fact, a letter, but instead embellished stationary from none other than the Archfield with only two sentences upon it.

_I couldn't do it. I couldn't marry Meredith._

Her heart contracts in her chest and then plummets, causing her diaphragm to seize up and the air in her lungs to leave in one rattling breath. The sun is brilliant and insistent on her back, exponentially stronger than it was in Seattle or even LA, but Addison feels cold, and yes, those are goosebumps creeping up her arms.

She sits suspended in eternity as Cailen calls her name loudly and then shakes her shoulders, telling her things, to breathe, maybe, but she can't. And then the priest is back, his dry, cracked chocolate hands on her forehead, and she manages a shuddering breath only to open her eyes and discover she's attracted a small crowd.

So she runs. Pulls away from helping hands and escapes into the burning sand, not stopping until the village is significantly smaller in the distance. She sinks against a palm tree, the rough trunk pushing her salmon tee shirt up her back and scratching the delicate skin underneath. She thinks she can sense a storm on the way, the sky is now pale grey instead of cerulean and a breeze teases the palm leaves but she heedlessly rips open the second letter, just as her ex-husband has ripped open her heart.

_I'm sorry; I know that was a little abrupt. I was drunk and I wasn't really thinking and all I wanted to do was talk to you. That may be unfair, I realize that, but I've been talking to you for seven months now Addie. You're the person I tell everything to, even if it's that I can't marry the woman I left you for._

_At least I'm fairly sure that you'll never have to hear the name McDreamy again because I'm sure most of the hospital staff is calling me McBastard now. I finally know how you feel when you walked in here with a rightful claim to me as my wife and everyone sided with Meredith and called you Satan. I get that Meredith's friends are going to take her side, but Richard, Mark and Callie are the only ones who are speaking to me and, well, I underestimated how awful it must have felt for you. I'm sorry._

_The truth is that I woke up that morning and everything just felt wrong. I don't know how else to explain it. It didn't feel anything like the day before I married you, when all I could think about was what you'd look like walking down that aisle. Instead I drove Mark so insane that he punched me and told me I was an idiot. And then somehow I just knew that it would never work when the only place I wanted to be was the airport, harassing them until they told me how I could get to Sudan fastest. _

_Meredith didn't take it well, obviously. Not that I'd expect anything less, but she threw one of the shots she'd been downing before the wedding at me. At least it's smaller than the stilettos you used to aim at me. She's resilient though, or so I keep telling myself because the last thing I need is a repeat of Elliot Bay. She thought she wanted this, but I don't think she did. After she was done being mad, she looked … relieved, although I doubt she'd ever admit it._

_I guess what I've been trying to say is I couldn't marry Meredith because I was thinking about you, Addison. I see you, all the time. You're everywhere._

_And really, it's time to stop beating around the bush. We slept together, Addison. Denying it or pretending it didn't happen isn't going to get us anywhere. I was planning on proposing to Meredith and you brought Archer to Seattle and took me out of the box and we had sex. We pretended it didn't mean anything but it turned out that it does, it means something to me._

_I don't think you're ready to hear this, but I … care for you, Addison. In a more than friendly letters way. And we may have screwed everything up and gotten divorced and it may have taken months of letters and a whole new country to make me realize it, but I love you._

_Derek_

_P.S. I think my mother's going to kill me._

The storm has settled in, wrapping the bare, sweeping desert in winds that reshaped the far-off dunes and causing scarlet tendrils to obscure her face as she walks quickly back to her hut. She settles onto her cot, pulling her sweat soaked salmon top up as far as is appropriate and lets her mind drift while she waits for the storm to wear itself out and smiles across the sweltering space tenderly. Then she drifts back to times when happiness equated pain but every drop of either was worth it …

It happened after Archer's surgery, after Jen's death. After their intense "you put the scalpel down" fight, and Jen's husband calling Derek a monster, she couldn't help but seek out Derek, even though he wasn't hers to help anymore. She had known that later Meredith would help him drown his sorrows in her signature tequila, but she'd found him first, head in hands in the on-call room farthest from the surgical floor. There were few times that she'd seen crystal tears fall from his sky blue eyes but that was one of them, and she cradled him as only she knew how to, pulling him close to her chest and allowing tears to seep into silk.

What happened afterward could not be assigned culpability, because he may have kissed her first but her hands were already fisted in his scrub top and yanking it over his head was only too easy. She hadn't kissed him since they were married and it showed, not in unfamiliarity but in desperation and longing, and by the time his open mouthed kisses reached her neck she had been already too far gone to resist the crumb of salvation he offered. Afterward it was predictably awkward in a clichéd way and she swept her hair up into a messy bun while trying to will the rose flush away from her cheeks and then made her escape.

Whether she loved him, or loves him now, even, in this country burdened by death and disease isn't the question. He thinks he knows, but he doesn't. He can't just say that he loves her, not after he broke her, not after all that's happened, all the things he doesn't know about. He just can't.

* * *

He's pretty sure he's in a hotel. He's also equally as not-completely-sure that it is Mark snoring beside him, blonde head resting on the bedside table, tux jacket hanging off of one shoulder. He's not sure though. Every time he tries to open his eyes the light pouring out in copious amounts from the bathroom blinds him.

He didn't drink tequila last night, as he's sure his almost-wife did, but enough scotch can have the same effect, causing his head to pound and his vision to blur as he wills himself not to throw up. It'll be inevitable at some point, he knows. There's no fighting nature.

But right now he just likes laying with his eyes clothes, making Mark and the hotel room (supposing that's what he's seeing) disappear. Instead he sees Addison, sun beating down on her bronzed cheeks, perhaps with a nut-skinned baby on one shoulder. She's found her way back into his heart again, and really, this admission was months in the making. He knew what he was getting himself into when he sent that first letter last September, knew that his relationship with Meredith was teetering on the brink of failure unless something was done. And yet he let her in again, willingly, to his innermost thoughts, which she hasn't been privy to since he found her in bed with the man sleeping several feet away.

He doesn't know what a third go of Addison-and-Derek will bring, or even if there will be a third round, but he's certain, finally, beyond a doubt that he wants to try. He's been lost for years and yet his home resides across a peacock blue sea in a country he's never even visited.


	15. July 30, 2010

**July 30, 2010**

It's been three months and he must think she's dead by now because honestly? When someone writes you a letter like that you don't wait four months to respond. Except, of course, if the writer is your ex-husband who is telling you he loves you again after you cheated and he cheated and left you for another woman. Then, she thinks, it just might be excusable.

There is no thought-out, justifiable reason she has paid attention to little but ocher sand and monsoon season. She was shocked for a couple weeks, petulant for a few more, and then angry at him for saying the things he did. Also, she was confused at how he managed to wear away the walls of her heart once again, making her vulnerable to him and his thoughtful, insightful, caring, _stupid _letters.

She's not ready. Plus also, Cailen kissed her. Or she kissed him, she's not really sure because she avoided him afterward and now he looks perpetually wounded whenever he looks at her and his puppy-dog eyes are getting on her nerves (mostly because she's not sure how long her resistance will last.) It was close-lipped, chaste, but lingering as they stood hidden by the lush leaves of the oasis while the villagers celebrated one occasion or another.

Not to mention Derek doesn't _know_. So it's not her fault she hasn't written, really. She just needs to think of something neutral to say, something in-between '_I don't think I ever stopped loving you_' and '_go back to your twelve-year-old girlfriend, you bastard_.' The phrase, unfortunately, hasn't dawned on her yet.

But now she's writing, deciphering things written deep in her heart, most of them in regard to one Derek Shepherd because he can ruin her and fix her, sometimes simultaneously. She doesn't believe, yet, that he'll stay with her or give up Meredith or his beloved trailer or do all the things he says he will. But she might believe that he loves her because otherwise she would be a hypocrite for loving him from afar for years, although she denied it and struggled against it.

She may not be ready to forgive him yet, but then again everyone is only allotted so much time, something she is reminded of every day as people die all around her.

_Dear Derek,_

_I'm sorry that it took so long for me to get back to you but the truth is, I didn't know what to say. And I thought long and hard about this letter but pretending isn't going to get us anywhere, so I'm just going to tell you how I feel._

_You've told me a bunch of things you should have told your girlfriend, and I told you a lot of things I shouldn't have said to my ex-husband who was in a relationship. I hate that you have essentially turned me into the other woman, even though we haven't done anything, because I swore I wouldn't be that person again. There was a situation in LA when I was … tempted by a married man to be that other woman. But in the end I didn't do it._

_Still, they shouldn't treat you like that just because you couldn't marry someone. You probably saved yourself and Meredith from an unhappy marriage, and you were brave enough to do something she was not. I think, Derek, that you were in love with the idea of her. Something new and fresh and unexplored and free of pain. But in the end, that idea did not come to fruition, and once the idea was dead, what was there left to love? You two burned too brightly - and now you've burnt out. But you tried, as hard as you were able, considering, and so in the end it isn't really either of your faults._

_It hurts to hear you say those things again, Derek, when in Seattle you called me Satan and said you hated me. Why can you forgive me now, but not then, when I was trying everything I could think of to get our marriage to work? What made you suddenly love me again? Because I don't doubt that Meredith wasn't right for you but that doesn't mean _I _am. I don't want you to come to me because I still care about you and you're alone now. It was so painful last time; I don't think I can survive being broken again._

_You've never been gone from my life, but I've put all my efforts into moving on. I have a life halfway across the world. I just kissed another man. We had some great times, and maybe we can again someday. But I'm not ready. It's going to take more than one McDreamy letter, Derek, for me to believe you. We have so much baggage that nothing is simple like it used to be, I'm not the studious redhead and you're not the eager student with amazing hair._

_And I freaking know we had sex, all right? I know that, but you were practically engaged. You loved Meredith, and what we did broke something in your relationship. It felt right because we had been together for so long before, but it was wrong, even though it meant something to me too._

_I love you too, Derek, I always have, I think, but that doesn't solve everything. It doesn't necessarily mean we should be together, because I'm not sure I'll ever stop loving you, even if I'm with someone else. I guess what this entire, rambling letter means is that I'm confused. I only know how to love you from afar._

_Addie_

_P.S. I wouldn't be surprised. She might actually like me better than you now._

It's really no different than he expected, he never thought getting Addie into his arms again was going to be a walk in the park. He needed her to know how he felt right then, because she was his only constant, the thing that kept him sane through a week of drunken stupor.

Now he's ready to fight, ready to make her see. His heart soars as he reads her words, because she loves him too. She's repressing it because last time she loved him it landed her in a minefield of heartbreak. But eleven years can't simply be cast away, and coffee kisses, late nights studying over lukewarm Chinese, and tumultuous feelings take eons to fade.

"Shep!" Mark booms, and Derek lifts his eyes away from the TV where the Yankees are battling it out with the Cardinals. He's reminded that while he waited, stagnant, for three months, life went on. "Can you run to the store? Callie wants burritos!"

"You knocked her up," he reminds his best friend evenly, thinking it's best if Mark prepares for upcoming fatherhood sooner rather than later. "You go get it."

"She wants a backrub," Mark pouts, hitching dirty sweatpants more securely around his waist. Derek has been living in their apartment since shortly after his failed wedding, so he was there when, a few days later, a shrieking Callie discovered that she was carrying Mark's baby. He watched, as if looking in through a lighted window, as Meredith and Lexie both had separate trysts with Jackson Avery, as Miranda struggled to share Tuck, as Richard began, once again, to subtly court Adele. It had been fine, for once, to watch from the sidelines, but now he's ready, after watching, learning, because they're all moving forward, even if it's only to move two steps back.

"You're going to have to start doing this stuff soon enough," Derek warns his best friend as Callie's calls start up again, the pregnancy hasn't been easy on her, causing constant morning sickness and residual nausea.

"Why?"

"I'm, um, well … I'm going to Sudan," Derek finally admits slowly.

"Finally," Mark grunts as he ransacks the freezer, apparently trying to decide if taquitos are an appropriate substitute for burritos.

"What?"

"Well, honestly, I don't know why you're not there yet. It's Addison," Mark says, as if this explains everything.

"I can't go now," Derek admits glumly. "Not with the merger. I already talked to Richard about taking some time off, but you know how he's been lately. He's barely acknowledging me. There's just no way I can get there for another few months."

"You'll find a way," Mark assures him confidently. "I just can't believe you might not be here when my kid's born. You have all those nieces and nephews and I'll just have Callie and don't get me wrong, I love her, but her and me and a crybag? Should be interesting."

"Don't call it a crybag," Derek tells him in amusement.

"Her," Mark corrects.

"It's a girl."

"Yeah," Mark says with an expression Derek doesn't think he's ever seen grace the man's face. "We decided on Adelyn."


	16. August 16, 2010

**August 16, 2010**

He knows they're just simple, perfectly square specks in a variety of colors, but when stacked up and piled together they make beautiful, breathtaking – albeit digital – pictures. However, he feels he could be looking at the world's greatest masterpieces, splayed out on across his laptop screen in pixels for him to see, and still they would not be able to steal an iota of attention from the little black words he's staring at.

They happen to be in a confirmation email sent by his favorite airline, verifying that he is indeed taking several connection flights to Sudan in less than a month's time.

Sighing as he downsizes the page once again (because he's being paid to take care of patients right now, after all) and pulls himself out of the chair, popping joints and straining tendons as he stretches, he finds himself facing a very large, very fierce, and very pissed off Richard Webber.

"Richard," he greets with perhaps a little bit too much glee (if this is what it feels like to go to Sudan, maybe he should go more often. Then again, if Addie's hell bent on staying there, he might be going a _lot _more often) as his boss and former mentor glares. "What can I do f -"

"A leave of absence. A leave of absence, Derek? Seriously? Do you have any idea what's going on in my hospital right now? Obviously not, because you nearly gave me a heart attack. My star neurosurgeon taking _a leave of absence?_"

"The merger was months ago," Derek argues, folding his arms resolutely in front of his chest. He should have done this years ago and if he has to choose between his job and Addison again, his decision is already made. "And I thought Addie was your star."

"This hospital -"

"- Isn't my primary concern anymore. I'm sorry, Richard, but I _will _be taking time off in a month and probably more after that."

"Are you going back to New York?" Richard asks aggressively.

"Wait – what?"

"God dammit, Shepherd, after all the effort I expended to get you out here and now you're going to …"

"I'm not going to New York," Derek interrupts. "I'm going after Addie."

"After … Addie," Richard repeats slowly. "Well, I … I guess that's all right then. Just don't … don't screw it up again, because if you hurt her a third time …"

"I know," Derek interrupts with a grin. "Don't worry, Richard."

_Addie,_

_You did have me worried there, as I remember you saying something about grenades. But I know you, Addison, and when I thought about it more, I told myself not to be surprised if you didn't, uh, get back to me right away. I ran, you avoided, Mark slept with whatever was nearest. That's how it was._

_I swear I never wanted to make you the other woman, and really, you weren't. Talking to you made me realize I was making some wrong decisions, but whether I had been sending you letters or not, marrying Meredith would have never been the right decision for me. So please don't feel guilty, especially on my account. _

_I think you're right about Meredith. It's easier to see it now, alone in my trailer, bottle of scotch in hand, which is how I spend most of my nights these days. She was new and exciting and different, and, I have to admit, I always did love a challenge. I didn't know when I was chasing you that you would eventually give in, but I was determined because I could see you walking down an aisle toward me someday. Meredith was a challenge as well, I could never resist fixing things, playing hero. I became carried away and yes there were feelings, but not enough to last a lifetime._

_I told Sam when you visited with Archer that Meredith wasn't a mid-life crisis, but now I'm not so sure. That wasn't all she was, because I did love her, but … when you compare it to what we had, and all the time we had … I just can't believe I was such an idiot._

_I have no answer to why I couldn't forgive you in Seattle. It wasn't fair, because you did everything you could to save our marriage and I was so busy being angry and not forgiving you that I guess I didn't see it. If I could change one thing, though, I think that would be it. All I can say is that I'm sorry. I don't know what the catalyst for the destruction of our marriage was, what originally caused me to become absent and our life together to disintegrate but whatever it was we hit rock bottom – there's no where to go but up from here and we've made it to friends again._

_We've been writing letters for almost a year now, did you know that? I want to see you. I would trade anything for just a glimpse of you over there in the sand, pushing sweaty hair out of your eyes as you save someone's baby. I can imagine it, but memories don't do you justice, Addie. And just so you know, I don't suddenly love you again. I've always loved you, and I won't break you again._

_And I know you're not going to come back to me just because Meredith and I are over. I get that there are other guys out there – ones who have never broken you and who could give you everything. But we're right for each other in a way that means we'll never truly fit with anyone else. I'm confused as well but I want to try us again. And even if you say no, even if you just want to be friends, I'll keep writing to you, Addie, because I can't lose you again._

_Derek_

_P.S. My mother threatened to deman me before I reminded her that if she does, there'll be no one to carry on the Shepherd name._

_P.P.S. I love you_

She steps down from the dirty doorway of the truck and down into the dust, which swirls around her ankles before being swept away by a tropical night breeze. Her shirt, which was once butter-yellow, is now mud brown and sticking to her back, but that minor details pales in comparison into what is in front of her eyes.

Once, she worried if there was even a tiny wrinkle in silk, if even one strawberry strand misbehaved. Now she's in a country with virtually no government, no laws, and no economy and she's kind of forgotten what a shower feels like and she's worn this shirt for five days now (not to mention these panties).

"What happened?" she shouts in Cailen's ear as he helps her down from the truck, and as she assesses the chaos, she wishes she would have never left to spend a week and a half in another village, although her help was badly needed. Now she doesn't know what happened but the people she's spent the last eleven months caring for are swarming around in complete panic.

She has other, personal reasons to be afraid but he would have said something, surely, if _that _had happened … she would know. He wouldn't withhold such information from her.

She trips over something that sends her sprawling into the sand, and as she quickly pushes her body back up so as not to get trampled, she discovers what she stumbled on: a human arm.

"What … happened?" she gasps to Cailen again because he still has a hold of her hand.

"Guerillas passing through, or so we think. They were going to pass us by, but they saw all the malaria vaccines we just got in, and …" he doesn't need to finish the sentence he pants rapidly as they run. "They didn't say where they were headed, but … there were a lot of them, Addison, all fully armed. They took food, medicine, fired a few shots, and left."

"When did they -"

"Less than an hour ago. It's good it was getting dark, or, well, they would have seen the truck."

"So?" she inquires as he stoops to pick up a frightened child. "There wasn't anything valuable on the truck."

"They harassed Eileen," he tells her softly, eyes reflecting the moonlight eerily. "They didn't end up doing anything because they were in hurry, but she was pretty freaked out." Addison shut her eyes, picturing slender, tiny, blonde Eileen, who was one of the best trauma surgeons she'd ever met and who faced down grenades fearlessly but flinched at tiny spiders.

"Is she …?"

"She's okay," Cailen assures her. "But if they had found you …" he leaves the statement to hang in the tense air as shouts ring out among them and the few doctors they have (the camp has swelled with a couple hundred refugees over the last year) rush around, trying to instill calm and save the injured at the same time.

Her mouth is dry.

"Where are you taking me?" she asks as they weave through conflict.

"Where do you think?" he returns cryptically.

Her heart pounds. They reach a collapsed hut. He would have told her already. He was safe. He promised. "He didn't -"

And in the swirls of inky midnight, she hears the call, "Momma!"


	17. September 6, 2010

**September 6, 2010**

He doesn't see her at first.

It's not surprising, the sun, this close to the equator, all but blinds him with her greedy rays that send heat waves shimmering across the sand. He shields his eyes as he hops down from the truck, his hiking boots displacing a bit of starbright sand as he does. Everything sparkles, it hurts his eyes. And he's already so dehydrated he's unsure how Addie survives here.

He nods his thanks to the driver (he recently encountered the language barrier for the first time) and hands him a couple twenties, causing the man to regard him with awe. He's already walking away, though, shouldering his bag as he moves toward the small village, part small thatch huts, part messily erected tents placed haphazardly over the sand. It's bigger than Addie described, partially, he suspects, because of the sudden overflow of refugees and the accompanying increase in doctors.

As he approaches the village, he gives up on searching for strawberry amongst licorice and vanilla amongst mocha in the dazzling sun and instead watches the women's figures. Most have a child or two hanging from their painfully skinny hips, held there by bright strips of cloth. He searches for Addison's slender, childless form in vain and decides she must be elsewhere, perhaps caring for patients.

People start up yells when he is spotted, foreign tongues hurled at him in what he hopes are friendly tones, but just in case he holds up his hands and declares himself a doctor. Apparently at least a few of them speak English because they send up more clad cries and hurry him into the village.

Many faces turn, proud, carved, exotic features tracking his every step, but it is the boy's face, tanned bronze but pale in comparison to those standing around him, the rare splash of ocean blue irises in a field of russet, that catch his attention. He's pointing, head cocked to the side, clearly curious and he turns to address someone Derek can't see.

Then his eyes meet Addison's.

He gets about a millisecond of wide teal eyes, sun-burnished red hair, chapped pink lips opened wide in shock before he's jostled by eager villagers what is to be his tent (shared with someone else, apparently, he sees a need pile of unfamiliar bags in one corner and so dumps his in the other) and then exits once again as soon as is polite.

She's standing just where he left her and the pale flush looks odd on a face tanned by a year in the relentless sun. There's a man by her side, chatting with a smaller woman (also doctors, he suspects) but he keeps throwing Addison anxious glances, as if unsure whether she's going to collapse.

There's a child on her hip too, held in a bright-patterned sling anchored on her right shoulder. He has coal curls, the ends of which have been lightened by the sun, and he's small but not malnourished, a little uncoordinated at what he estimates to be three years of age. His eyes are the same at second glance and third and fourth, the same skysail blue he's seen in the mirror for more than forty years.

"Derek," she says with something almost like anguish in her whisper. Activity still reigns around them but they stand suspended in time and sorrow and memories lost, trying to find their footing in a relationship that has hovered near the edge of destruction for years. She's in dirty khakis and a forget-me-not blue tank top that shows off shoulders freckled by the constant radiance.

"Addison." It's not a question, not even a statement, merely the only thing he can say, because if that boy is his – if he's not dreaming up pseudo likenesses – he doesn't know what he's going to say to her. She stares at him for another brief iota of time before turning (he notices her feet are bare, just like the villagers') and weaving through the cacophonous crowd, deeper into the village.

He follows, a lost man seeking answers.

He's seen this hut in her meticulous descriptions, but even with her words to guide him he could never know how the humidity felt, clogging his nostrils, or how it felt to live inside a mosquito net, something she must be accustomed to but he has to remember to put back in place. She sits on the cot, child in her arms.

"He's mine," Derek sighs. "Isn't he?"

"Yes."

Her answer is blunt, but it hurts more to be beaten to death by a blunt club than stabbed once by a sharp sword, and he raises his defenses in response. "Were you ever going to tell me? Let me meet him?"

"I don't know."

Addison's simple answers, a clear indication that she's shutting down, are infuriating him. All this time he's been apologizing, trying to convince her to trust him, while she's been hiding this pivotal, wonderful, poisonous secret.

The boy is staring at him, he sees a bit of Nancy in the shape of his face, the set of his cheekbones.

"He's my son. I had a right to know. I have a right to know. I come all the way out here to prove to you that I love you and I want to try again and I find out you've been lying to me for four years!"

"Technically, we've only been talking for one."

"God dammit, Addison! That's all you have to say?" He's on his feet, pacing, sweat pouring from his pores. Addison has distracted their baby with a toy, but his wide eyes follow Derek, tearing a bit with fear. He doesn't even know his son's name.

"You were getting married! Living your happily ever after with your intern. A child, by me especially, would have ruined that, and you know it. If Meredith had found out, she would have been gone before you could blink. And even if she didn't, the secret would have come out eventually, when we least expected it, like it is right now. Is that what you wanted? You would have hated me."

He deflates, because the things she's saying are stinging him with truth. Neither of them are in the right, here, neither one is blameless. His eyes land on his son. _His son._ "What's his name?"

"Christian," she replies softly. "I thought about Christopher, but that would have been a little … obvious, I guess, if your mother and sisters ever found out. Of course, he looks just like you, so it wouldn't have mattered. Some of his friends here call him Christos."

"Momma?" Christian prompts, upon hearing his name. He points one tiny finger at Derek. "Who dat?"

"This is Derek. He's … well, he's your Dad, buddy. Can you say hello?"

He can tell the boy doesn't understand, because his face doesn't glow with sudden joy or relief or revelation, instead he toddles curiously to Derek's side to regard him once Addison's given him permission. "Hi Dadek."

"Derek," he and Addison correct at the same time, but Christian takes no notice. Instead he hands Derek a slim plastic tube, covered in dust.

"Um, thanks, little man," Derek says uncertainly, while across the space Addison bites her lip to keep from laughing. He holds the tube awkwardly until Christian takes it back with a grin, unscrews the top and squirts a large white blob of moisture onto his leg. "Whoa!"

"Christian has a thing about sunscreen. The last person he tried to put it on was an elephant," she says apologetically as she hands him a paper towel.

"Are you calling me an elephant?" he jokes, and for a second they're back _there_, two med students dating, newlyweds still in love who tease and laugh and kiss at every available opportunity.

"Maybe," she says coyly before plucking the sunscreen from Christian's hands. "He doesn't like to talk much, you know, but he's really smart. And he's good with animals – they all love him, I call him my little zoologist," she ruffles his curls affectionately. "He was born premature, when I was only twenty-eight weeks along, and his first word was 'Na', for Auntie Nae. He doesn't have an imaginary friend, but he talks to Dora like she's not in a cartoon world with a creepy fox. The heat makes him tired, but he still goes out to check on all his pets."

"He's amazing. I missed a lot," he breathes. "His first step, his first smile -"

"Derek …"

"I would have wanted to know, Addison."

"I'm sorry."

"That doesn't – that can't make up for everything I've missed! We wrote letters to each other for a year! I've been broken up with Meredith for months now, and you couldn't find a spare moment in all that rambling about some guy you kissed and all the babies you saved to tell me I have a son!"

"Sun is out dere, Dadek," Christian contributes.

"Look, Derek, I …" she's scrambling now, desperate, it reminds him of the time he caught her in her first act of betrayal. "This wasn't how I wanted things to work out …"

"How did you expect them to go? What should I have said – 'Oh, I have a son, really, Addison? Well, that's just dandy, thanks for _finally _telling me!'"

"Don't be like this, Derek, please -"

"Don't Derek me!"

"Then stop! I made a judgment call about our child because _you weren't there_."

"You took him to Sudan. Sudan! Sudan, Addie! There've been wars and genocides and diseases – he could have died!"

"He didn't though, Derek. He's fine. I've -"

"You told me there were grenades! That the village was fired on! What the hell compelled you to stay here with him?"

"They have a place for the children to go," she replies defensively. "Adults can't fit, but someone always takes the kids there the minute we hear something. It's underground and completely safe. So don't imply I can't take care of my son. Terrible things happen to kids everywhere. I'm not a bad mother, Derek."

"Really? Well that's news to me!" he snaps, striding angrily out of the tent and becoming entangled in the mosquito netting. Figures dart out of his sight at the corners of his vision, and he knows they had an audience.

She follows him, pleading, and he flashes back to another night, a time with rain instead of sun, clouds instead of blue skies, nosy neighbors instead of desperate villagers. It still feels the same, the burning shame of betrayal. "Derek, please!"

He skips ahead a little in the story. "I can't look at you," he says, and watches her crumple.

* * *

"Where we going, Mommy?" Christian asks, pulling his knees to his chest as he watches her throw their belongings into a suitcase that has collected so much dust nobody would ever guess it had once been sleek and black. Her son has been through an emotional turmoil today, and he has retreated into himself, a habit that's developed, she's convinced, because he grew up without a father. She wants to comfort him, but he _needs _her to get his father back.

"We're going home, baby," she tells him as she tosses the last of their shirts, a striped polo (that also used to be white) and a stretchy yellow t-shirt, into the suitcase, and hears an ancient truck rumple outside, flooding the hut with fragments of light that spill through the cracks.

"Yay! Dora the 'Splora!"

* * *

**Yeah, I said there would be no more ANs, but I lied, because I thought everyone would be a little confused/surprised about Christian. But he's been in the story the whole time – he's the reason for her too many suitcases in chapter 1, why she has two cots in her hut in chapter 3, he's the curly haired boy in chapter 5 with the elephant, why she glances across the hut after her 'dream' in chapter 9, he's the boy standing by her in chapter 10, he's why Addison's worried about doing it (parenting) when the other practice members leave in chapter 11, who she's looking for in chapter 12 when they are hit by grenades, and, of course, the child who said 'Momma' last chapter. So he's been here :)**


	18. October 4, 2010

**October 4, 2010**

Christian is on his knees, peering out the airplane window at the faraway firefly glitter of Seattle nightlife, nose pressed against the glass and she's considering telling him how many germs are on that window, but she just doesn't. He's had his world uprooted in three days, he misses his animals and last time he saw the sprawling buildings of Cairo and rode in a plane up above, the clouds, he was not even three years old. Now he's just barely four and the new experiences have caused a certain amount of withdrawal, of introspection, so she leaves her son to his thoughts, whatever those may be.

Addison is unsure whether to be grateful that while Christian mashed the terms 'dad' and 'Derek' into one word, he didn't fully comprehend the meaning behind it. She sips her cranberry juice and nearly spills it when the fasten seatbelt sign dings and the captain requests that they buckle their seatbelts.

She pulls Christian from the window by the pockets of his plaid Bermuda shorts and the boy relaxes back into his seat as she fastens the strap around his waist. "I want Benji," he complains, referring to the elephant he had spent the last year and a half bonding with in Sudan. "Dora says Benji would like the lights."

"Dora says so, huh?" Addison inquires with a sad smile, because sometimes she really doesn't understand her child. They've been to specialists, but Christian has no form of autism, ADHD, or anything else. He's just unusual, his thoughts follow twisted, unforeseen patterns that are difficult for her to mirror.

"Mani would like it too, and Cheese-it. Dora knows _lots _about aminals," he responds. "Right, Dora?" The Spanish-speaking cartoon doesn't answer, but Christian smiles triumphantly and returns to his study of the window from the restraint of her seatbelt. Addison sighs and allows her eyelids to fall over her eyes tiredly. Sometimes she thinks Derek might be better at this.

They spend the night in the Archfield, where Addison dwells in overwhelming memories and Christian watches Dora for two hours straight after turning the lights on and off about a hundred times and then finally falls asleep in 'beds that are made of clouds.' She sleeps restlessly, dreaming of Derek's angry face, illuminated by the harsh African sunlight.

People stare as she enters Seattle Grace, skin a dusky caramel instead of her former smooth cream, a child that resembles their head of neurosurgery in tow. She hadn't heard that Izzie was back but she and Alex are whispering quietly, urgently, and she can't tell by their tense stances if they are still together. They don't see her, but Cristina Yang does, glaring with slanted eyes over a chart she suspects details complications with a patient's heart, and she nudges Meredith, who is talking to a resident Addison has never met.

The younger woman's eyes flicker over Addison and she offers, to Addison's surprise, a small smile. They've both walked the plank off of ship McDreamy and there's mutual understanding now, shared pain and indistinguishable disappointment. Addison smiles back, pulling her diaphanous black sweater closer around her, warding off the cold that she's grown used to in the constant sun of Sudan; Seattle now feels like Antarctica.

But the movement alerts Meredith to the occupied status of Addison's left hand, and when her grey-green eyes fall on Christian, the nostalgic atmosphere is gone. Her eyes narrow at the sight of the boy whose genes can have only come from Derek, and the air thickens with unadulterated tension.

She could keep walking, could ignore the portion of her undesirable past that took place in Seattle, but she feels that Meredith deserves an explanation. She's not the enemy in this twisted love triangle and maybe she hasn't been a saint but she's still a human being who loved Derek Shepherd too.

So Addison halts and allows Meredith to step in front of her and verify Christian's existence for herself. "Seriously?"

"Dr. Grey – Meredith, I -"

"No, I just can't believe … I just can't believe him," the young resident states weakly, tears in her eyes. "He didn't tell me he had a wife, then he left me for his wife, then he cheated on you with me, and left you, and I thought it was over. I thought I finally had him. But he did it again. He can never choose," she says bitterly.

"It's his greatest fault," Addison confirms quietly. "But for the record, he didn't choose me this time. He didn't choose either of us. And I won't lie and tell you I don't care for him, that I always have, even when it was over, but … I've had enough. I'm throwing in the towel. I have to think about Christian now, and he doesn't deserve this kind of instability."

"I'm throwing in the towel too," Meredith sniffs. "There isn't anything left for me, and I just ended up being more dark and twisty than before. But you … I think Derek would want to know his kid."

"Maybe," Addison murmurs, lost in thought, picturing him boosting one of his nephews up to place the star on the top of the family Christmas tree. "Good luck, Dr. Grey. I'm sorry you got caught up in all this."

"I'm sorry too."

An hour later, Addison enters the trailer for the first time in more than six years. Derek hasn't changed the locks, she notices wryly as she steps into the place her marriage died. There is no risk of running into the man who inhabits this god forsaken place, however, because her appointment with Richard revealed that Derek had taken an unspecified leave of absence shortly after returning to Seattle, and he hasn't been seen since then. She feels a little guilty for taking Richard's famous head of neurosurgery away but he copes with the disappointment by offering her a position at Seattle Grace.

She told him she was returning to Sudan, but that she appreciated the offer and should her and Christian ever come back, she would definitely consider it. Before they departed, Richard gifted her and Derek's son with a small plastic model of the human brain, something he hasn't relinquished since. She always had him pegged for a zookeeper, but realizes there's hope yet for him following in his father's footsteps. Not that she minds – she'll support him unconditionally – but Derek always wanted little neuro-geniuses for kids.

"Mom?" Christian asks, tugging at her hand. "Momma, it's Swiper!"

Addison allows a smile to grace her face, knowing that five years ago that sentence would have been unintelligible to her. "Swiper no swiping!"

"Mom, he's gonna take Dadek's house!"

"How did you know …?" she trails off incredulously as her son sprints off into the knee-high grass in order to confront the kleptomaniac fox. He may get caught up in fantasy worlds but when he does bother to take a peek at reality, his perceptions are unnervingly sharp.

And while he plays, she pens out what might be her last letter.

_Dear Derek,_

_I will only ever be sorry that I kept Christian from you, like I will only ever be sorry that I betrayed you by sleeping with Mark, but like the latter, the former was not done with you in mind. Cheating on you was done with myself in mind, and those motives were irrefutably selfish, but I kept Christian from you with him in mind. You had the right to see him, but I couldn't have him hurt by seeing you. He's my number one concern. You grew up without your father, who didn't want to leave you, but I grew up with one who didn't care I existed. I didn't want Christian to go through the same disappointment, because one of a parent's greatest fears is that a child will have to experience the same pain they did._

_I understand that you're mad though, because I can justify it all I want, but it doesn't change that you don't know him, have never known him. Maybe this is where the Addison-and-Derek saga ends because maybe this is the one thing you cannot forgive me for. I don't know. But I do know that if you ever want to see him, or know him, or talk to him, you know where to find us. I don't think we'll be returning to LA for quite sometime, so I think we're going back to Africa. I feel useful there, and Christian has his animals, and there hasn't been bombing in months._

_I do love you, Derek, I don't think I've ever stopped. And it's wonderful to love you but potentially hurtful at the same time. We got lost somewhere, in New York, and wandered off the path of happily ever after, and I'm not sure we'll ever get back. I'm sorry things turned out this way, because when I walked down the aisle I really thought it was forever._

_I don't know where you are or when you'll find this but I hope that you'll want to know your son. He's the best thing that ever happened to me, Derek, and the most amazing person I know. He's been asking about you. I'm not trying to guilt trip you because it's my fault you haven't gotten to know him, but if you can find it in your heart to forgive me enough to want to know him, we'll be waiting for you._

_Love,_

_Addison_

He ate here thousands of times as a child, with Nancy on one side and Kathleen on the other as they all ate voraciously, and now he's a middle aged adult feeling like a kid again as his mother places a steaming bowl of tomato soup in front of him and flips his grilled cheese onto a Blues Clues plate.

Carolyn Shepherd is a patient woman, she's let him sleep in his old bedroom for a week now and asked no questions as he forwent shaving and other general hygienic practices, but he's pretty sure her presence in the kitchen means she's had enough of his behavior.

He can't tell her, though, he just … can't. The soup scalds his tongue. How can he tell her of her fifteenth grandchild, born out of wedlock and an illicit night on which he betrayed the girlfriend she adores? How can he relate this story in a way that will not turn her against Addison any more, because it is partially his fault he never knew his son? He has no answers, so he stays silent.

He's right, however, about her demand for information. She leans on the edge of the counter, the skin of her soft elbows molding to the granite, and looks at him. Just looks.

"Derek, you're my only son, and whatever you've done, you know I'll always love you. If, however, you keep moping around like this I will call your sisters to get whatever this is out of you." It's a legitimate threat, and she knows that he knows it.

So he takes a deep breath, thinking that she asked for it, and says, "I have a son."

To Carolyn's credit, she merely raises an eyebrow and waits for him to continue. When he doesn't, however, she says, "So, Meredith …"

"No," he snaps. "Addison."

"Addison had your son," Carolyn repeats for clarification, her tone indecipherable.

Quite honestly, Derek had expected more a reaction, but maybe she's just building up to it. "Yes."

"Well, what's his name? I can't very well be his grandmother if I don't even know his name."

"Did you hear me? _Addison_ is his mother. Not Meredith. I cheated on her and Addison had my baby and she kept him a secret and you just want to know his name?!"

"I won't lie and say I ever liked Addison," Carolyn sighed. "But you loved her, and that should have been enough for me. You loved Meredith too, and I saw someone more like us, someone who wasn't fed by a silver spoon all her life, and thought she would be good for you. But Derek, you've always done whatever you wanted. Your dad owned a store; you wanted to be a neurosurgeon. I wanted you to marry a nice, down to earth girl who would up her career for your family, you married Addison Forbes Montgomery. And when you finally chose a girl I approved of, it didn't work out. Clearly I don't know what's best for you."

"Ma …"

"No, just listen for a minute, Derek. I may not know what's best for you, but I do _know _you. You're upset that Addison kept your son from you, that much is clear. But she … loved you, Derek, enough that she could let you go. And I was wrong, because not throwing a kid in your and Meredith's faces is more unselfish than I ever gave her credit for. We may never get along, and you might never forget this, but you'll regret running away from your kid."

"I don't … I don't know what to do. I can't think. What do I do, Ma?"

"I can't answer that for you, Derek. But this isn't doing you any good. I gave you my advice, now you need to go home and sit in that goddamned trailer of yours and decide who you are and what you're going to do."


End file.
